


The Sound of Your Voice From Far Away

by pukeandcry



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Camping, Canon Compliant, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Road Trips, Take Me Home Tour
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-25
Updated: 2014-07-25
Packaged: 2018-02-10 09:53:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 39,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2020584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pukeandcry/pseuds/pukeandcry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>It'd be perfect, he convinces himself. Things with Lou are – well. They're the way they are, and there's no point dwelling on why it's got that way. But he thinks this would help -- not fix them, because they're not </i>broken<i>. They don't need to be put back together, they're just. Out of sync, maybe. It would </i>help<i>. He thinks it would, anyway, if they could just be the two of them again, to be alone together with no outside influences pressing claustrophobically in on them, just for a bit. And driving down an empty highway with nothing else but Louis beside him is the best way to do that that he can imagine.</i></p><p>Or, after the U.S. leg of the Take Me Home tour, Harry and Louis drive from L.A. to NYC. They figure some things out, like how to deal with the distance that's been growing between them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sound of Your Voice From Far Away

**Author's Note:**

> WELL I started writing this a LITERAL YEAR AGO, ha ha ha, so that's something. I just wanted to send them on a fun lil road trip, except then things... happened... and then it was hard, and then I gave it up for dead a couple times, and finally a million years later, here we are. It's mostly canon-compliant, set after the US leg of the TMH tour, although I handwaved a few details, so like... ignore those bits?

Probably it’s some sort of cosmic punishment for fucking off when they’re meant to be rehearsing. But honestly, eventually it reaches a point -- and Harry hates to think this, because it sounds rotten even to him, even if it’s true -- that rehearsing feels pointless. There are only so many ways they need to practice hitting their cues, especially when the brunt of their choreography the time around is “cross over here at this verse,” “make sure your harness is clipped properly,” and “try not to catch fire,” the last bit of which is chiefly aimed at Harry. Which, in his defense, hasn’t actually happened yet, even if it’s been close a few times.

Anyway, it’s nearly the end of the North American leg of the tour, only the four L.A. shows left, so Harry figures they’ve probably got it at least mostly sorted by now. He’s not the only one who thinks it, apparently, since Louis and Niall are kicking a football around instead of paying attention, and Liam is sort of joining them, visibly torn between not giving a shit about rehearsing and feeling a bit shit because of it. Zayn is propped up in the third row of seats with his chin on his fist and his eyes closed, very probably asleep.

Harry rearranges himself on his belly atop the amplifier he’s draped across, letting his head and arms hang over the side of it as he scrolls aimlessly through his Instagram feed. He thinks about taking a picture of the X on the floor beneath him made out of duct tape and captioning it “x marks the spot...” but can’t actually be bothered to follow through, feeling mildly out of sorts for no reason he can put his finger on.

“Ten minutes,” Paul is calling to them. “Pay attention for ten more minutes and you can go.”

Harry ignores him, staring down at his own dangling hands, and that’s when the football cracks him in the back of the head, jolting it so he smacks his chin on the edge of the amplifier.

“Fuck, shit,” Harry swears under his breath, cringing at the sound of his voice and the ringing inside of his skull. He twists on the amp and reaches a hand back to rub at the back of his head where the football hit, breathing in heavily through his nose. He doesn’t want to make a scene, but the sharp bloom of pain isn’t doing anything to improve his shit mood, and he’s already on the edge of something stroppy and unpleasant as it is -- he has been for days, the last dregs of restless energy after months and months of touring starting to go sour in his blood.

He sort of wants to shout, but stays silent instead, staring at the football where it's rolling away from him.

It had quite literally hit him when he was down. Or at least, lying down. He tries not to be so much of a twat as to see metaphors everywhere, but sometimes it’s hard.

“Shit, mate, sorry,” Niall calls from the other edge of the stage. He shrugs apologetically, and Louis just cocks his head to the side in a gesture that Harry can’t read -- not quite apology, not quite sympathy. Just an acknowledgment, maybe.

“Isn’t there like, a thing,” Harry says slowly, trying to decide if he feels concussed, “about not playing ball indoors? Like, a thing all parents tell their children?” He hopes he manages to keep his voice light. He really doesn’t want to make a scene.

“It’s not really _indoors_ ,” Louis says, pointing a finger airily upwards. He smiles, sort of, but there’s not much humor in his voice, nothing teasing or mocking, just a statement. Harry closes his eyes and tries not to feel frustrated, because yes, technically there’s not a full roof on this particular venue, but that’s not the _point_.

“Still,” he says eventually. Louis doesn’t respond, and after a moment he jogs slowly across the stage and past Harry without looking at him to retrieve the football from where it’s rolled to a stop behind a piece of stage equipment.

Harry slowly unfolds himself from the amplifier, which he’s pretty sure he’s not meant to be lying on in the first place, and shakes out his hair, trying to clear his head. “Can you call Cal and have him bring the car?” he asks Paul. “I’m going back.”

“Ten minutes,” Paul says again, like he’s bargaining with a child. Harry hates being spoken to like a child, and equally hates to complain about it. “Ten minutes of a proper rehearsal.”

“Let him go,” Louis says from the wing, football propped between his bare forearm and the curve of his hip. “We’re pretty much done.” He says it neutrally, and even though he’s technically backing Harry up, it makes him close his eyes and breathe out heavily through his nose again. His head is pounding.

In the end, Harry waits outside and around the back for Cal, the metal crew access doors of the venue slamming shut behind him. It’s hot in L.A. today, and he slides down against the brick wall, legs splayed out in front of him as he waits. He wishes he had a hat to keep the sun out of his eyes. He wishes he knew why he feel so sour, and then wishes that he _didn’t_ , because he knows exactly why -- he just doesn’t like it much.

-

“You still out of sorts?” Zayn asks him later. He’s let himself into Harry’s room back at the hotel, and now he’s lounging across the foot of the bed, squinting at his phone as he texts someone. Probably Perrie.

“I wasn’t out of sorts,” Harry says instinctively, even though he was, a bit, and still sort of is. He’d thought about not opening the door when Zayn had knocked, and if it’d been anyone else on the other side of the peephole, he might not have, because he’s still not really in the mood to talk to anyone. But Zayn is quieter than the rest, usually, especially on his own, and Harry thinks maybe the company will shake him out of -- whatever it is that’s got him shirty. Zayn had walked all the way to his room from where the buses are parked round back, anyway, and it’d be rude to turn him away.

It’s just -- Harry doesn’t like to complain, and tries to do it as little as possible. That’s his rule, the thing he clings onto like a buoy to keep himself from ever turning into an ungrateful twat, which seems alarmingly easy to do in this line of work -- he doesn’t complain, because in the grand scheme of things, he’s the luckiest bastard he can think of. He refuses to be the person who can’t count his blessings, starting rows with his bandmates and his coworkers and his friends and his family (who are all mixed up at this point anyway, mostly indistinguishable from one another) just because he’s woken up on the wrong side of the bed. The massive bed in a posh hotel in Los Angeles where he’s in the middle of a world tour. That’s not the sort of person he wants to be.

“You were, mate, it’s okay,” Zayn shrugs. “Y’don’t have to do, like, the thing.”

“What thing?” Harry asks. “I don’t do a thing.” He nudges Zayn’s shoulder with the side of his ankle.

“You do the _thing_ where you’re tetchy and want to shout at someone but you won’t let yourself,” Zayn says neutrally. “You don’t get angry even when you’re angry. ‘S’weird.”

“I get angry,” Harry says. “I can get angry.” He frowns a bit, testing it out.

“Oh yeah?” Zayn asks, looking up properly and tossing his phone away so it bounces on the duvet. “Do it, then.”

Harry twists his face into something he hopes looks like a scowl or something else fierce. “Grr,” he tries. Even to him, it sounds kittenish.

Zayn snorts out a laugh and stretches out onto his back lazily. “Pathetic,” he says, sounding despairing and fond all at once.

“I _can_ get angry,” Harry insists, because he wants to prove it, although he’s not sure why. But he _does_ , is the thing. Even if he doesn’t throw tantrums and yell at PAs, he still gets ornery and sulky just like the rest of them, so Zayn’s clearly exaggerating. There have been plenty of times -- recently, even -- when he’s been forced onto the second bus because he’s being bratty enough that even Niall couldn’t stand to be around him for the rest of the day’s drive.

“You get tired or hungry,” Zayn says. “Or like, a bit bratty. That’s not the same as getting properly angry. You just clam up and piss off when you do. I know you, mate, sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” Harry says without thinking. He doesn’t like it when people apologize to him for no reason almost as much as he doesn’t like people to think he’s an entitled arse. Probably the two are related. “I get mad, though. I got mad in that interview last week, the one where the bloke called our fans crazy.” It's true, he had -- he hadn’t, like, interrupted the interview or stormed off or anything, but he’d tried to turn it around into a compliment, something like _passionate_ and _dedicated_ , even if the journalist had just looked at him a bit pityingly when he had, like he’d been being naive. Harry likes to think his answers had been shorter and more clipped after that, hopefully kept the reported from getting a proper quote or sound bite as a minor form of retribution. It’s not making a proper scene, but he thinks he made his displeasure known, at least a little.

“You were angry on _their_ behalf, though,” Zayn says. “‘S’not the same.”

Harry frowns and tries to turn it over in his head.

“I’m not, like, criticizing you,” Zayn says after a pause. “Just noticing.”

“Hm,” Harry says. He picks at a hangnail on the side of his thumb, and then digs his toes under Zayn’s wiry arm when he leans to pick up his phone again, a bit harder than is necessary. He thinks it probably pinches him a bit, but if it does, Zayn doesn’t say anything, just smiles and unlocks his phone.

“How’s Pez?” Harry asks after a bit.

Zayn gets that nauseating look on his face. “Brilliant,” he says, soft and happy in a way that makes Harry want to cuddle him and be sick at the same time. Perrie and Zayn make him feel like that a lot, really, sickened and endeared all at once.

“She’ll be here soon?”

Zayn nods, and looks like he’s somewhere far away for a moment. “‘S’been a while,” he says. “Miss her, like.”

“Gross,” Harry says with a smile, wriggling around until he’s at the foot of the bed as well, parallel to Zayn. He tucks himself under Zayn’s arm so he can curl into his side, leaving Zayn’s right hand free to tap out another message. “Love.”

“Sure, gross,” Zayn agrees, pulling Harry in closer. “Close your eyes if you want, mate, I’ll wake you up when the car’s here.”

Harry doesn’t mean to, but in the end his eyes wind up shutting, and he stays like that for another hour until Zayn’s nudging his shoulder, trying to shuffle him sleepily to the car that’s waiting to take them back to the venue.

He feels better after sleeping curled up against Zayn like that, and by the time Lou’s shoving them all into their first outfits and touching up their hair as they huddle together just before going onstage, he feels lighter, less on edge. His head doesn’t even hurt anymore, and his chin only a little bit from smacking it on the amp.

“Los Angeles,” Liam says as they orbit into each other, forming a tight circle. “Four nights. Wow.”

“Four,” Zayn agrees. “ _Wow_.” He only sounds halfway mocking, and Liam rolls his eyes and kicks at his shin good-naturedly across the circle.

“Let’s fuckin’ smash it, lads,” Niall says. His shoulder knocks happily into Harry’s, and the familiar feeling of adrenaline starts to crackle there, spreading down his arm to the tips of his fingers and down into his toes, flexing in his worn-out boots.

Louis doesn’t say anything, but across the circle from Harry, he glances up at him and smiles, an old, familiar hint of something in his eyes. Harry can’t help himself -- he’s never been able to -- and smiles back, because there’s nothing quite like it, even after years of exposure to it, being on the receiving end of Louis’ grin. Especially not this close up. It has a weight to it, a heat, and he feels something in his stomach settle as they look at each other silently for a moment, until Louis finally looks down, the edge of his mouth still quirked up.

Then they’re being rushed into their places, and the music is kicking in, the familiar thump that he knows by heart, knows in his skin, and then he’s singing, and there’s nothing else at all, just the crowd and his boys and the music.

They fucking smash it.

-

The responsible thing to do, when you’ve got four shows in a row in the same city, is to wait to go on a piss-up until after your last show, especially when it’s the end of a long leg of a tour and you’ve got what feels like _ages_ of time off coming up, practically _years_. It’s less than a fortnight, in actuality, but that’s longer off than Harry can remember having in -- longer than he wants to think about. A long time.

So probably it could’ve waited, and Harry could have just as easily gone back to the hotel and stayed there for the night, saved it for after the final show, but at the same time, it feels like it can’t wait. He wants to ride the happy throb of adrenaline out into something softer, and he wants to do it now.

“C’mon,” he wheedles, Zayn and Liam flanking him as they back Paul into a corner of the hotel lobby, tucked behind a potted plant. “We were brilliant. You should sort us out a car so we can go celebrate.”

“Please,” Liam echoes, in that tone of voice he saves just for Paul, the one that says 'you and me, we're on the same team, yeah?'

“You can’t drink here,” Paul protests. “None of you.”

“Paul,” says Zayn sadly, shaking his head, because really, that means so little, except as a talking point in interviews – how terribly _unfortunate_ it is that none of them but Louis can have a drink in the states. “Paul, you haven’t learned anything, have you?”

He must have, though, must have figured out how this goes, because they’ve had this conversation in at least half the cities they’ve stopped in since landing in America. Paul never wins, but Harry thinks it’s admirable he at least tries to put up a fight. For the sake of appearances. It probably helps Paul sleep at night, anyway.

“I _know_ places,” Harry says, trying to sound sage and responsible beyond his years. “Honestly, I can find us a place where there won’t be a fuss, or like, paps. No trouble at all.”

“Every time one of you lot guarantees there won’t be trouble that’s a sure sign there will be,” Paul says warily, with the expression of someone who’s watching a wild animal to see if it’ll charge.

“There won’t,” Harry says, trying to pull his most angelic, non-threatening face. “What trouble would the three of us get up to anyway?” He gestures at Liam and Zayn, who go for similar looks of innocence. Zayn winds up mostly looking nauseated.

“Tommo and Niall aren’t even with us,” Liam points out, and that’s probably the death blow to Paul’s arguments, because at least one of the two is involved almost every time something happens that gives Paul a headache, either directly causing mayhem or at the very least, subtly encouraging it. If it’s just the three of them, Liam and Zayn will do their Liam-and-Zayn thing all night, which is markedly quieter and calmer than if Louis is around, and Niall won’t goad Harry into drinking anything that tastes like petrol. It’s a win for everybody, except possibly Louis and Niall. It’s a win for Paul, at least.

Paul sighs heavily, and Harry knows it’s just a token protest that they ought to be resting up before he gives in, now.

“Aren’t you tired?” Paul says, a bit pleadingly. “You’re sure you don’t want to go back to your rooms and rest?”

Harry smiles. He knows when he’s won.

-

The agreement is they can stay at the club only on the conditions that they leave for it immediately, which prevents them from telling Louis and Niall and mucking up Paul’s hopes for a relatively calm evening, and that they only stay for an hour and a half, and that if there are any paps around when they arrive, Paul’s taking them back straight away, no questions.

It works out better than Harry could’ve dreamed, and an hour later, he’s tucked into a booth in the small club he’d found for them, across the table from Zayn and Liam, on his third drink. The place is weird, but he thinks it’s in a good way -- it’s not crowded, particularly, and the odd purple lighting distorts everything a bit so it’s all slightly unrecognizable and alien. That in itself seems to subdue everything an increment from the usual tightly-strung tenor of the clubs he’s used to. He looks around lazily, twisting his drink in his hand, and thinks there are a handful of people around he ought to recognize, but they’ve gone wiggly and indistinct in the curving, lavender glow that gives the whole place a muffled atmosphere. He feels drunk and happily dazed and a bit like he’s on Mars, unreachable and isolated in the best way. No one’s looking at him, no one’s asking him for autographs or photos or crying onto his shoulder, and he doesn’t mean to sound like it’s a bother when that _does_ happen, but it’s nice, now, to just sit and drink and listen to Liam and Zayn lazily talk about Kendrick Lamar to each other, not even the two of _them_ addressing Harry directly.

Harry can feel himself grinning inanely, and he’s drunker than he ought to be, but it’s just -- it’s nice, that’s all, and he’s enjoying that for once he’s able to forget himself, just a bit. To let things go on around him instead of having to be in the thick of it.

He glances down at his hands, and then pulls out his phone to take a photo of the glass he’s just emptied, because why not.

Somewhere between two and four drinks later he’s well on his way to pissed and texting Gemma. She’ll by incredibly cross with him if it wakes her up, because it must be practically morning back home, but he can’t find it in himself to care.

 _lots of purple lights here_ , he tells her. Even though she’s not responding, certainly dead asleep, it makes him feel more grounded talking to her -- or at her, at least -- all the same. Gem is solid, an anchor, and no matter how thin the line gets stretched between them, no matter how far-flung he feels, she keeps him from floating off, even when he’s just sending her nonsense strings of thoughts as they come into his head.

_anise is weird i dont think i like it_  
_its in a drink i had i mean_  
_i’m sure its lovely as a plant. flower???_  
_tastes odd thouhg_

He pockets his phone, after that, and thinks happily that when he wakes up in the morning, he’ll have a response from her, probably calling him an idiot. It’s a strangely soothing thought.

He has another drink, maybe two, while Zayn and Liam talk, the feeling of muffled underwaterness increasing the drunker he gets. They’re saying something, but Harry’s not sure what -- the strange light and the drinks fizzing in his blood are distorting it all a bit -- so he just smiles at them when they happen to look over at him. It’s not unpleasant, though, so he lets it course through him, and when Liam gets a text from Paul saying their ride is out front and it’s time to go, he feels a bit reluctant.

In the van, he squishes between Zayn and Liam, who slap drunkenly at each other around him, giggling. His ear gets caught in the crossfire, and then his shoulder, and for all he feels a step outside of their two-man bubble, he sighs happily all the same.

-

He means to go to his own room. At least, he thinks he does, but as he pads unsteadily down the carpeted hall he’s thinking of Gemma, and anchors, and the sense of being all alone underwater, and all of a sudden he’s at Louis’ door instead, knocking.

“Oh,” Louis says, a soft edge of surprise in his voice when he answers. He’s barefoot and in cut-off trackies, a loose, baggy t-shirt slipping down his shoulder. “Thought you went out?”

Harry nods. “Back now, though. Can I come in?”

Louis backs up a step to let him into the room. There’s a pause before he does, a consideration, but it’s short enough that Harry can tell himself he doesn’t notice it.

“You lot left without me and Niall,” Louis says. It’s more observational than accusatory, though, so if he’d been sore about it, he’s over it now, only putting up a fuss on principle. “Traitors.”

Harry just shrugs. “Had to make our break when we could. Paul said you two were too much trouble.”

Louis’ mouth quirks up at that, like he wants to be offended but is finding himself pleased instead.

The television is on, and Louis’ things are spread around the room messily, like he’s been here a month instead of only a few days. Harry’s always found it impressive, in a way, how much Louis can spread himself out over a place in such a short period of time. He’s always known how to leave his mark.

“What're you watching?” Harry asks, folding himself clumsily onto the sofa and peering at the television. There are two actresses on screen that he thinks he probably recognizes, or at least, he would if he wasn't more than middling drunk.

“Movie,” Louis says unhelpfully, perching on the opposite end of the sofa. He's got his glasses on, and Harry wants to reach out and touch them, because he's missed them. He realizes it's a stupid thought as soon as he thinks it, to miss someone else's glasses, but it's also true, so.

“Is it a movie with a name?” he asks instead.

“Thelma and Louise,” Louis says. “'S the only thing on.” He shrugs.

“What's happened so far?” Harry asks, and Louis rolls his eyes, but smiles, because he hates it when Harry does this, comes in halfway through something and asks Louis to explain what he's missed.

“They're on a road trip,” he says. “One of them has a shite husband, or boyfriend, or something. Haven't really been paying attention.”

“Can I watch with you?” Harry asks, curling his knees up towards his chin.

“Aren't you tired?” Louis asks, which isn't a no. Harry shakes his head a bit too hard, and it sends everything spinning. “Yeah, all right,” Louis agrees.

They watch silently for a while, Harry only peripherally paying attention to the film, his eyes shut for most of it as he listens to the clatter of the air conditioner and the opening and closing of doors out in the corridor. It's peaceful, and a bit like being in the club – he feels closed in and safe, in the thick of it and yet removed.

“We should do that,” Harry mumbles after a bit, opening his eyes to watch the car barrel down a wide-open country road on the screen. It’s easy, now. Easier, at least. Easier to tell Louis what he thinks, easier to let his mouth go without stopping himself to think if what’s going to come out of it is all right, if there’s anything in it that’ll make Louis tense up or purse his lips or go silent. He’s drunk, and he knows, distantly, that it’s not really a _good_ thing, that this is the only way he knows how to properly talk to Louis lately, but. But at the moment he’s not very inclined to examine it any further, because Louis is smiling at him now and it looks so _familiar_ , and Harry really, really doesn’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth.

“What,” Louis says back quietly, the edge of his mouth pulling up into a grin. “Kill ourselves driving into a canyon?”

“No,” Harry says, shaking his head. “Wait. Is that how this ends?” He frowns at the screen.

“Young Harold,” Louis says, shaking his head sadly. “You know nothing of cinema. Your youth betrays you, or something.”

“I’m older than I’ve ever been,” Harry says nonsensically, flopping over and shoving his face down into the cushions. The room’s gone spinny again. He was saying something, he’s pretty sure.

“You’ll be so uncomfortable if you fall asleep there,” Louis warns him, but Harry can’t pick his face up from the sofa. It’s soft enough, and Louis is next to him, and this is precisely where he wants to be.

“Don’t care,” Harry says, and then he remembers. “I wanna do that. Road trip. We should do that.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Definitely. Think about it.” Harry’s eyes are closed. He’s tired, suddenly. He doesn’t think he’s going to pass out, and could probably get himself to his own room and his own bed easily, but finds he doesn’t want to even a bit. “Open road, and all. Shit motels. Sandwiches out of vending machines. Soaring vistas. The whole thing.” Even as he describes it, he can see it, barefoot on a dusty road somewhere in the middle of America with Louis by his side while the sky engulfs everything around them.

“No time,” Louis says, his voice tinged with apology, like it’s his fault. It sits sour in Harry’s stomach, because it’s no one’s _fault_. It just -- is.

“We could,” Harry insists. “We’ve got time. After Friday.” He knows Louis knows that. They’ve got a proper week off after the last show in L.A., and then another mostly free after that, only interrupted by a few promotional things back home. Louis knows all that, same as Harry does.

Harry stays still. He can feel Louis peering at him curiously, even if he can’t see it with his face hidden. It’s the longest, most sustained attention he’s gotten from Louis in weeks, at least that hasn’t felt guarded and removed by miles, and Harry tries to slow down his breath so he doesn’t somehow dislodge the moment. He can feel Louis’ attention under his skin and in his bones.

“We’ve all got plans, though,” Louis says slowly. “Flights back home and all. And Liam’s going on holiday, anyway.”

Harry makes a sound, muffled by the weft of the cushions. “Not all of us,” he says. “You and me. Like. Just us.”

He feels it when Louis goes tense.

“Oh,” Louis says eventually. “That’s, um.”

“I just think,” Harry says slowly, making sure he knows what he means to say before saying it. He wants to go to sleep, but he wants to make Louis understand him as well. “It’d be nice. You and me, like, no one else. See places instead of just driving through ‘em on a bus, y’know?” He turns on his side, finally, to actually look at Louis. He’s got his shoulders up near his ears, hunching in on himself, that horrible, unsure look back on his face, like Harry’s a strange, exotic animal he doesn’t know how to handle.

“‘S a nice idea,” Louis says stiffly.

“Let’s do it,” Harry says, stifling a yawn. “Say yes.” It comes out whining and childish, but he doesn’t care. Maybe Louis will remember him better if he acts younger, pretends to be sixteen again. Louis used to indulge him, then.

“You’re tired,” is what Louis tells him after a moment. “And drunk. Sleeping here?”

Harry doesn’t respond, because he can’t manage to wrench his eyes open, suddenly exhausted. “We’re gonna do it,” he mumbles as Louis clambers off the couch and away from him, leaving space for Harry’s legs to sprawl out.

If Louis says anything back, Harry’s asleep before he hears it.

-

Harry wakes up on the sofa in Louis’ room, as far from the soft-looking bed as possible, two thick white dressing gowns draped over him. His mouth is dry and stale and there’s a buzzing in his head to match the drone of the television that Louis has going, watching it from where he’s perched on the end of his bed.

Harry sits up and tries to steady his stomach.

“Morning,” Louis says when he’s upright. Even from across the room everything about him looks soft. His hair is unstyled, falling down over his eyes, and he’s got on the same loose shirt and cut-off trackies he’d been wearing yesterday, his legs tucked up underneath him. All of Harry’s sleep-slowed instincts want him to cross the room and tackle Louis back into the soft white duvet, wrap it around them both and stay there as long as they can, hold Louis down with his body like a paperweight to stop him from fluttering away.

But that’s not how it is anymore, not really. So he stays where he is.

“Sorry about the dressing gowns,” Louis says, smiling tentatively, the cautious smile that Harry hates. “Looked everywhere for another blanket, but I couldn’t find one.” He shrugs apologetically.

And that’s it right there, that’s what’s off between them, because it used to be that Louis would’ve laughed himself stupid at the idea of Harry sleeping on a sofa under a mound of dressing gowns, probably would have taken a picture of it, would’ve stuck the plastic shower cap from the bathroom on over his hair as well and put it up on Twitter, or at least texted it to the rest of the band. Harry would’ve felt him putting on the shower cap and pretended to be asleep so Louis could finish the joke properly, trying not to give himself away by smiling.

Or more likely Harry wouldn’t have been covered by dressing gowns in the first place, because he wouldn’t have slept on the couch at all. He would have crawled into bed with Louis without a second thought.

He sighs, and rubs his eye with the heel of his hand.

“'S'alright. Thanks.”

“'Course,” Louis says, smiling small at him. “Ordering breakfast. D’you want?” He nods at the hotel phone and room service menu he’s got balanced on his crossed legs.

“Sure,” Harry says. His throat is scratchy and dry, and he thinks he’d better have hot water instead of coffee, or he’ll be fucked for the show tonight.

“What d’you want?” Louis asks politely. Harry frowns.

“You know what I like,” he says after a moment.

Louis looks at him a bit helplessly. “But, like – what do you want?” he asks again.

Harry lets his eyes shut again, just for a moment, like he's trying to do it over, the waking up thing. But when he opens them again, Louis is still looking at him, patiently waiting for an answer.

“I guess an omelet,” he says finally. Louis smiles at him gratefully, like he's been let off the hook, and then busies himself with ordering food and then flitting about the room, pulling clothes out of his suitcase at the foot of the bed and disappearing into the en suite. He's still in there when the food comes, and if Harry cranes his neck he can see him from the sofa through the open door, fussing with his hair in the mirror.

Harry eats his eggs on the sofa as Louis carries on, refusing to sit down, shoving a piece of toast into his mouth as he folds a stack of clothes and then goes back into the toilet. He's conspicuously trying to keep himself busy, Harry realizes, and once he does, he desperately wishes Louis would just sit still, just eat his breakfast with him like even that's not too complicated now.

In the end, Harry can't finish his eggs, and Louis just waves distractedly at him from the toilet when he says he's heading back to his own room.

-

The rest of the day is unremarkable enough to blur into hundreds of ones that Harry's already lived, which feels a bit ungrateful, but, like – there's just no way to differentiate between all the afternoons he's spent fucking around in a hotel room, playing a video game with Niall, doing another interview over the phone, and trying to nap off the dregs of his hangover in between. There's nothing at all wrong with it, it's a good day by all accounts – it's just one of the ones he's resigned to have to remember as a larger part of a whole, rather than something on its own.

The only difference is that he keeps thinking about what he'd said to Louis the night before, the thing about the two of them taking a trip, of driving across the country together. He hadn't realized it was something he'd wanted until he'd said it, but now it's sticking in his mind like a lyric to a song – he keeps coming back to it, replaying it over and over a bit desperately.

It'd be perfect, he convinces himself. Things with Lou are – well. They're the way they are, and there's no point dwelling on why it's got that way. But he thinks this would -- not fix them, because they're not _broken_. They don't need to be put back together, they're just. Out of sync, maybe. It would _help_. He thinks it would help, anyway, if they could just be the two of them again, to be alone together with no outside influences pressing claustrophobically in on them, just for a bit. And driving down an empty highway with nothing else but Louis beside him is the best way to do that that he can imagine.

The problem is that Louis hadn't seemed particularly enamored with the idea when he’d voiced it, at least if Harry's remembering through the fug of his hangover right.

But he puts that bit out of his mind, because there’s nothing he can do about it -- not now, anyway. Instead he pulls up maps on his phone while Niall takes PKs in the game, tracing the lines that go from one ocean to the other as he tries to figure out the routes to get them where he wants to go. He realizes he hasn’t ever thought about the enormity of the States, just how far they spread. In the tour bus, it’s easy enough to chop it up into manageable segments: a show, a city, a stretch of road between the two. But like this, spread out in front of Harry, crisscrossed by enough roads to make his eyes fuzzy, it seems suddenly enormous, like it could swallow him up whole. The idea makes the edges of his mouth curl up in a smile.

Part way through their third game, Niall starts to give him shit for having one eye on his mobile -- he’s got a map zoomed in on the state of Kansas pulled up on the screen -- when he’s meant to be playing FIFA, so he throws it aside and tries to concentrate on the game. The highway numbers and thin roads traversing all that space stay just behind his eyes, though.

Eventually Niall tosses the controller down, resigning their match. “It's not even fun anymore, mate,” he says sadly. “Not if you're gonna lose six times in a row.”

Harry pouts at that. “'M not losing on _purpose_.”

Niall laughs at him, shoving his hat onto his head as he heads for the door. “Could've fooled me,” he calls as it swings shut behind him.

-

Just before the call for the car that will take them to the venue, Harry forces himself to get off the bed and shove his feet in his shoes, checking for his phone and his room key before padding down the hall to Louis' door before he can talk himself out of it.

Louis looks mildly surprised to see him when he opens the door, his phone held loosely in one hand halfway to his ear.

Harry smiles at him and shuffles in when Louis makes room in the doorway for him, glancing at his phone as he does.

“Sorry, you busy?” Harry asks.

“Nah, not really,” Louis says. He lowers the phone, taps something into it quickly, and then shoves it into the pocket of his trackies. “What's up?”

Harry wants to say that he doesn't need to have a reason to come see him, but he actually sort of has one, this time, so maybe it's not fair to protest.

“Just wanted to, like, apologize if I was annoying last night,” Harry says, sitting down on the sofa where he'd been sleeping just hours ago. “Was pretty twatted.” He hadn't been _that_ drunk, really, but it seems like he ought to justify it somehow – if not his actions then the apology itself.

Louis rolls his eyes with a smile. “It's fine, Haz. Would've booted you out if you'd been too obnoxious.”

“Oh,” Harry says. “Well. Good.”

Louis' face quirks in a confused smile. “You came down here just to say sorry for being drunk? 'Cos I've gotta tell you, I've seen you in _much_ worse states. This isn't like, a twelve steps apologies sort of thing, is it?”

Harry snorts and chucks a throw pillow at Louis, and for a second everything is right.

“No, actually, came to ask you again about my brilliant idea,” he says slowly.

“You've had a brilliant idea?” Louis asks, feigning surprise.

“The road trip idea,” Harry says.

“Oh,” says Louis, going a bit tighter in the face, and suddenly it's less easy than it had been a moment ago, even though he's still smiling. “Hadn't realized that was a brilliant idea so much as a drunken rambling.”

“Things can be both,” Harry says.

Louis scrunches up his face and then sits down on the armchair next to the sofa. “Dunno, Haz. Doesn't really seem practical, does it?”

Harry frowns, because the day Louis is concerned with practicality above all else is the day Harry eats all of his hats, every single one of them, even the scratchy, woolly ones.

“What d'you care about being practical?” he asks, trying to keep his voice light.

Louis just shrugs.

“It'd be--” Harry pauses and thinks of what he wants to say. He wants to say _good for us_ , but that seems like a bit much, the fastest route to Louis putting up his guard. “A laugh,” he says instead. “Good reckless fun.” He suspects the _oh what an adventure it'll be_ tactic will be the most likely to work on Louis.

Predictably, Louis raises an eyebrow at that. “Reckless,” he repeats thoughtfully. For a moment his eyes do that thing that usually mean Harry's about to be involved in something that'll inevitably get him shouted at, but then it winks out. “But, like,” Louis says. “How would it even work?”

Harry tries to seem like he's thinking about it off the cuff, and that he hasn't been pulling up maps of the United States on his phone periodically throughout the day, working out how long it takes to drive from one side of it to the other. “Well,” he says, hoping it sounds casual, “could have Paul change our flights. If we drive to New York and fly from there, could be home in plenty of time to do the promo stuff.”

Louis looks at him curiously. “I guess, yeah,” he says cautiously. “I dunno, though. It just seems like...”

Whatever it seems like, though, he doesn't say.

“It takes, like, four days if you keep a steady pace, I think,” Harry continues. “We could take a week? See some stuff along the way, like.”

Louis looks like he's thinking, and Harry's not sure if that scares him or not. He doesn't look convinced yet, anyway.

“Paul'd probably hate it,” Harry says, his last gambit. “We'd be mucking up his itinerary and be loose in a foreign country with no one minding us. Might not even be able to talk him into it.”

He knows that hits home, can practically _see_ the moment Louis starts to come around to it. But then his face shutters, and Harry can't tell what he's thinking anymore.

That alone makes him want Louis to say yes worse than ever. He wants to be able to tell.

Instead they sit silently for a long moment, Harry picking at the knee of his jeans as the quiet stretches around them almost tangibly.

“Well,” he says eventually, voice flatter than before. “Never mind. Car'll be here soon.” He stands to go, brushing his palms on his thighs just for something to do with them.

“Hey,” Louis says to Harry as he collects his things and guides them out the door and to the lifts. “I'll think about it, yeah?”

It feels a bit like pity, a deferral to get Harry to drop it, but it's the best he's got. At least it's not a no. Harry thinks he'll take that, for now.

-

The second show in L.A. is like the first, loud and chaotic in the way that’s so familiar to Harry now. More familiar than the quiet places in between by a long stretch.

Halfway through, he turns to the left and catches sight of Louis across the stage, lit from behind by a spotlight that casts him into relief. For a moment Harry forgets where he is, because all at once he does and doesn't recognize Louis. He's far away and hidden in shadow and Harry feels a sharp need to get to Louis like a weight in his gut, a hook in his stomach pulling at him to close the distance between them.

He desperately wants Louis to agree to this trip, and he wants him to agree _now_.

He knows it's not playing fair, but honestly, he doesn't care that much. Louis won't expect him to bring it up again in the middle of the show, that's certain, because they're careful, always very careful in how they interact on stage, nothing that could be misconstrued, not even an arm slung around a shoulder. They have to be so careful not to give an inch because it inevitably turns into a mile, and that mile grows and grows between them until it's a chasm.

But at the moment he can't help himself, and it's the exact opposite of the direction he's meant to go in at this bit, but he lopes over to Louis' side anyway, wedging himself into the light and shadow that's wrapped around him and leaning in next to the side of his face.

“Please,” he says into Louis’ ear. Beyond them, he hears the screaming ratchet up, going into overdrive at the sight of his mouth anyway near the vicinity of Louis’ face. He never imagines the din can get any louder than it already is, he thinks distantly, and then it always manages, somehow.

Louis just leans back so he can look Harry in the eyes, head tilted up and a perplexed expression on his face.

“The road trip,” Harry says, leaning in closer. He hides his mouth with the curve of his thumb as he says it, hoping it looks casual and not deliberate, but still enough to hide the shape of his words. “C’mon.”

Louis doesn’t say anything, just looks at Harry with a curious expression for a beat too long, and then he’s whirling away, meeting Liam part way across the stage to flick off his baseball cap during his solo. Harry forces himself not to make any sort of face, not when it’ll be broadcast on twelve enormous screens if he does. He smiles, instead, fiddles with his watch while Liam recovers his hat and finishes the bridge, and then he bounds across the stage after a moment to meet the rest of them. When he reaches the mass of them, Louis is suddenly at his elbow, and he doesn’t say anything, but he does reach out for just an instant as they rearrange themselves for the next song, a sharp pinch at the back of Harry’s bicep and then a nudge at the curve of his elbow.

The screams start again, and Harry ignores them, smiling.

-

“Should I be expecting another negotiation about going out on the town tonight?” Paul asks him in the van on the way back to the hotel.

Harry just shakes his head serenely. He doesn’t feel the itch to move tonight, and finds he’s perfectly content to retreat to his room and do nothing for the rest of the evening. There’s a posh tub -- he could light some candles, have a bath, and maybe a wank. Except that some of his best candles have gone missing recently, now that he thinks about it. He suspects Zayn, in which case there’s no hope for getting them back; he may have to muddle through without them.

“I’m going out,” Louis announces firmly. “Still can’t believe you arseholes went without me. Honestly, what’s even the point?”

“The point was we got to go out,” Zayn says, and dodges Louis’ attempts to smack him over the seat.

“And you had a miserable time,” Louis tells him, swatting at his hair. “Everyone has a miserable time when they’re anywhere I’m not. That’s how it works.”

Harry smiles before he can help it, and then points it at his feet.

“I’ll go with you,” Liam says good-naturedly.

“I should think so,” Louis says, leaving Zayn be for a moment so he can drape himself all over Liam. “I expected it from the rest of this sorry lot, Liam, but your abandonment has wounded be most of all. You owe me.”

Harry stops smiling quite so much.

In the end, Liam and Louis go out on their own, finding a club that they somehow get Paul to greenlight, and Harry slouches up to his room alone.

A few hours later when Harry’s in the bath, up to his ears in bubbles that smell like lavender, his phone buzzes where he’s left it on the closed lid of the toilet. He thinks about leaving it, but he’s nearly lost interest with the bath anyway, already having wanked off straight away, and now mostly just sitting around going pruny. It’s a bit underwhelming without the candles, anyway.

He stretches out of the bathtub just far enough to grab at it, leaving a puddle of water beneath him as he goes, and unlocks it carefully with one damp hand.

It’s an alert for one of Liam’s tweets, he realizes -- a link to a grainy picture of him and Louis in a dim club, both of them already looking well pissed. Liam’s grinning widely, and Louis’ tongue is out, pointing one finger at Liam with the same hand that’s clutching the neck of a bottle.

Harry tries to feel genuinely pleased for them, because the two of them love a good night out on the tear, particularly lately, and it seems as if they’re having one. He can’t quite manage it, though, so he squints at the photo for a long second before switching off his phone, tossing it to land with a soft thump on a towel.

He sinks down into the bath even further, over his ears and eyes, just leaving the tip of his nose above the water as he tries to sort out how he feels.

It’s stupid to feel _anything_ , he realizes. It’s not the sort of thing that requires a reaction. Louis is only doing exactly what Harry’d done himself the day before -- going out after a show to work off the energy that tends to get stuck in your veins. Harry doesn’t even particularly want to be out with him and Liam, so it’s not _jealousy_ , he doesn’t think. He could’ve gone if he’d wanted, and he’d chosen the bath.

More than anything, he supposes he feels out of sorts just because it reminds him of all the things he and Louis don’t do anymore. He tries to picture himself in Liam’s shoes, getting pissed in a club with just Lou and none of the other lads, and can’t even begin to imagine how it would go. That’s the worst of it, he decides -- he doesn’t even know if they _could_ do that anymore, or if it’d be too awkward, all tense, apologetic looks from Louis and silences drawn out just a beat too long. He wonders whether or not they’d wind up having a row -- it scarcely happens, but it’s almost always when at least one of them is pissed. It’s always horrid.

He hasn’t any idea at all, one way or the other.

He sighs, and tries to shrug the thought off. When he can’t quite manage he settles for kicking the drain stop away instead, waiting while the water disappears until he’s left sitting naked in the empty bathtub, feeling a bit foolish.

-

When Harry wakes the next morning, Liam's already up and about, the only one in their private breakfast area, carefully dumping sugar into his porridge with an air of laser-focused concentration.

“Morning, Harry,” he says cheerfully when he sees him. Too cheerfully, in Harry's opinion, especially since Liam’s the one who’s been out all night. It's too early for that. It’s too early in general. He scowls, and snatches the empty mug that's sat at Liam's place at the table away.

“How do I convince Lou to go on a road trip across America with me?” Harry asks instead of greeting him back. It's been on his mind since he woke -- since he'd gone to sleep in the first place, actually -- getting some outside help in his crusade, and anyway, Liam will probably know. He's with Louis more than any of them, lately. Maybe he'll have a brilliant insight.

“Um,” Liam says, frowning. “Dunno, have you talked to Tom about it? That's, like. A bit weird, innit?”

Harry stares at him blankly for a long moment until he sorts out what Liam's talking about, and when he does, rolls his eyes heavily. “Not _Lou_ , you donut,” he says irritably. “Louis. Our bandmate.”

“Oh,” Liam says unselfconsciously, and then, “ _oh_. That. He mentioned that to me, yeah, said you wanted to drive to New York?”

Harry nods slowly and tries to decide how he feels about Louis mentioning his grand plan to Liam. Okay, he supposes, if it'll mean Liam can help him get Louis to agree to it.

“Tell him he has to come with me,” Harry says, fully aware of how fractious and petulant it comes out and feeling unbothered by it all the same. Liam, to his credit, is the only one Harry ever feels like he can get this prickly with, and not just because Liam never bats an eye at him for it. There's just something about Liam that, despite the perpetual air of puppy-like earnestness that surrounds him, feels competent all the same; makes Harry feel like he can be a bit of a brat and demand someone else try to sort it out for him. Liam doesn't judge. He just nods his head and tries to figure out how to make it better, even if it's just by making understanding and sympathetic faces.

“No one can make Tommo do anything, mate, you know that,” Liam says, a bit apologetically.

“ _You_ can,” Harry says sulkily, crossing the small room to fetch the kettle.

Liam just shrugs. When Harry sits back down, Liam looks at him considering, his brow furrowed a bit like he's thinking very hard.

“This is important to you,” he says eventually, like he's deduced something brilliant.

“Yes,” Harry says slowly, since that much seems obvious, at least to him.

“Well,” Liam says, thinking visibly. “Have you told him why?”

Harry sighs.

“I'm just saying, I think you ought to,” Liam says mildly, reaching over to mop up the tea that splashes out of Harry's mug when he sets it down with a thunk on the table.

Harry just scowls down at Liam's porridge, and thinks about how unfair it is that Liam's so often accidentally right.

-

He doesn't follow Liam's advice, though. It’s not _bad_ advice, necessarily, and honesty _is_ the best policy and all that, but there’s something in between the theory and execution of it that stops Harry from saying anything. The small, stroppy part of himself that he mostly tries to ignore keeps whispering that Louis should already _know_ why Harry wants to do this, regardless of what Liam says. He doesn’t want to have to _talk_ about it, because Louis should already _know_.

That’s nonsense, of course, because the whole bloody thing has to do with how Louis is too far away to automatically know something like that anymore, but he still can’t quite bring himself around to explaining it. So mostly he stares at the back of Louis’ head when they wind up in the same place, gathered in Niall’s room and then at lunch before being herded off to a radio interview, willing Louis to read his mind instead of making him actually _say_ anything, and then feeling put off when he doesn’t.

When they get asked what their favorite city they’ve visited in the U.S. has been during the interview, though, Harry can’t stop himself from leaning forward so the microphone is just near his mouth.

“They’ve all been brilliant, and of course we love L.A.,” he says. He glances over at Louis meaningfully, then. “But, like, I think most of us always sort of forget how big it is, y’know? Like, loads bigger than England.”

Niall snorts, but Harry ignores him, staring as intently as he dares at Louis, who’s suddenly focused on his fingernails.

“There’s still so much of it we want to see someday,” Harry says. “Not just like, the big cities either, but the bits in between, you know? I think we’d all love to just be able to visit those places, like, just take a trip and sightsee a bit. That’d be brilliant, I think.”

Louis looks up at that, and frowns at Harry so slightly he would’ve missed it if he hadn’t been looking straight at him.

Then the look on Louis’ face wipes clean, and Harry sits back, satisfied, as Liam blathers on about Miami and Chicago. He can feel Louis looking at him intently, even after he drops his gaze down to his own lap, and something about it curls self-satisfied in his stomach. He’s got Louis’ attention, at least.

-

Later, in the van on the way to the venue, he leans forward to where Louis' sat in the row in front of him, typing on his mobile with a frown. Harry's got his own phone clutched in his hands, and he flicks through the screens one more time as he hooks his chin on the back of his seat and waits for Louis to notice him.

“You need something?” Louis asks once he does, the edge he gets in his voice when he's tired creeping through.

“I figured it out,” Harry tells, reaching his phone around so Louis can see. “Perfect route for our trip. Starts here, goes through Colorado, spit through the middle states, boom.” He wiggles the map on his screen in Louis' direction as proof. “Wind up in New York easy as anything.”

“Harry,” Louis says, and it's sharp, sharper than he's used to hearing from Louis. “Can you give it a rest? I haven't even agreed.”

Harry opens his mouth, but he can't think of anything to say, so he just kind of sputters, taken aback more than he wants to admit.

The look on Louis' face softens a bit, but he still sounds strained when he continues. “Look, it's just – I'm just in the middle of this,” he says, gesturing down at his phone without elaborating as to what _this_ is, “and I’m bloody exhausted, so can you just...”

He trails off. Harry doesn't know what he's supposed to _just_ , but if it means to sit back and leave Louis alone, fine. Fine.

He forces himself not to ball his fists like a child, spreading his fingers out widely on the seat. He breathes in, counts to ten, and then breathes out. Louis doesn’t look back at him.

“Sorry,” he says after a moment.

-

He doesn’t remember much of anything in particular from the third show once it’s over. He sings the songs same as ever, there’s a Twitter question that has them do impressions of each other, and Louis looks at him exactly the same way as usual -- in passing glances from opposite ends of the stage.

None of the lads go out afterward, but Niall and Zayn hole up on the bus to watch a film. Harry barely even shakes his head when they ask if he wants to join them before shuffling into the hotel lobby. He hasn’t seen Louis since he disappeared into the back of the bus before they’d even left the venue, and doesn’t bother waiting around to see if he’ll emerge.

In the lift, for once, he’s alone -- no Preston or Marco escorting him, no fans trying to shove their way in, not even any a stray businessman or family on holiday. He tries to get himself to savor it, to enjoy it, rare and fleeting as it is, but mostly just feels tired. He stares at his reflection in the mirrored wall as the floors ping by, and only manages to think about how he could do with a shower, unsure if he can be arsed to bother.

 _sorry_ , he texts Louis later when he’s wrapped up in his bed. The glow from the reading lamp built into the headboard is the only thing breaking through the dark of the hotel room. It casts a circle of light just around him, a bubble of soft glow two feet in diameter that winks out into darkness abruptly beyond that. He draws himself into it, pulls his duvet tighter around him, and tries not to feel sorry for himself like a prat. He wonders if he ought to apologize again, wonders if Louis is even reading his texts all. _didn’t mean to bother u. it was a silly idea anyway_ , he types.

He shoves his phone under his pillow and sleeps with the little lamp on.

-

“Okay,” Louis says from somewhere to his left. “It's sorted, I think, or like. Pretty much? I talked to Paul and he thinks if we change now I can get a flight into Sheffield early enough to get home for a day or two before going back to London, and you can fly into Heathrow. Or somewhere else, if you like. It'll be tight, but it'll work, I think.”

Harry blinks slowly, burrowed somewhere underneath three pillows and only barely conscious. Louis is talking, but that’s all he understands, because the last thing Harry remembers is a rapidly dissipating wisp of a dream about knitting a very large jumper.

It’s early, he realizes once he pries his eyes open. The horrible tinny alarm on his phone hasn’t even gone off yet, which means it’s before seven. That’s the first confusing part, because Louis doesn’t wake up earlier than any alarm. Not his, not anyone else’s.

He’s also dressed properly, Harry realizes, frowning in confusion and struggling to sit up in the bed in some mostly upright arrangement. Louis is in actual clothes, tight jeans cuffed at the ankle and a shirt with the collar only sort of stretched out, laced up shoes and everything, and that part is confusing too, because Louis doesn’t get dressed before he has to either. Something very strange must have happened in the night if Louis is awake and dressed before seven.

Also, the part where he’s in Harry’s hotel room, talking about -- something. That part is confusing too. Whatever it is that’s going on, Harry can’t sort it out, which is probably an understandable byproduct of waking up fifteen seconds ago halfway through a conversation he hadn’t known was happening.

“What,” he says experimentally, rubbing at his eyes with the heel of his hand.

When he blinks again, Louis comes into better focus. He’s standing at the edge of Harry’s bed, peering curiously at Harry.

“Our road trip,” he says after a long pause, seeming a bit unsure now. He crosses his arms over his chest, curling in a bit as he does.

“You said you didn’t want to go,” Harry says dumbly. He shifts around so he’s sitting up straighter, still not quite able to shake off the sense of being in between sleep and wakefulness, and props himself up against the headboard where his little reading lamp is still glowing softly. He reaches up a hand to switch it off, and as he does the sheet wrapped around him slips down his waist. He’s very naked, he realizes, and Louis is very much not. And that’s not anything _new_ , necessarily, it’s just that suddenly he’s more aware of it than usual.

“I said I’d _think_ about it,” Louis says. Harry wonders if Louis had anticipated him saying that, because it sounds like a response he’s practiced to get just right.

“Oh,” Harry says, still feeling like a crucial part of his brain hasn’t caught up yet. “But. Like, in the car yesterday. You said to drop it.”

“I was tired,” Louis says, shrugging and looking down.

Harry blinks again, still feeling several steps behind. “You talked to Paul?”

Louis keeps looking down, picking at the blanket at the foot of the bed with his thumb and forefinger idly like he’s trying to keep busy. “Um, yeah. Last night.”

“I texted you last night,” Harry tells him, also reminding himself.

Louis yanks at a loose thread on the blanket and then pulls his hand away, stuffing it into the pocket of his jeans. “Saw that. I was already talking to Paul, actually?” He sounds vaguely apologetic about it. “And, like -- look. Paul said it was all right, if you still want to, so like, you can talk to him about it, if you want. Or if you don’t, we can forget it, it’s just -- it’s sorted, if you do.”

“How,” Harry says slowly, “did you get Paul to agree?”

Louis laughs a bit, finally smiling. “Mixture of whining and threats, mostly. Told him we’d do it anyway even if he didn’t agree and then he’d be in the shit even worse for not wrangling us properly.”

“Poor Paul,” Harry says idly, for a moment wondering exactly how much of a bonus they should probably give him for Christmas this year. It’s always big, but probably even bigger than usual. “That’s -- thanks, Lou.”

Louis just smiles again, and looks down at his feet.

“You don’t have to,” Harry says softly, folding his hands on top of the sheet carefully. “If you don’t want to, I mean, like. Don’t feel like you have to because I kept asking about it, okay? I don’t want to go if you don’t, really.”

“I know,” Louis says decisively. “But I do, yeah? I don’t do things I don’t want to.” He scratches at his elbow and then stands up a bit straighter. “Anyway. I’m, um, supposed to meet Liam, actually, like -- ten minutes ago? I just wanted to tell you.”

“Okay,” Harry says, a bit dazedly. “Yeah, okay.”

And then Louis is out the door, and Harry’s not exactly sure what’s just happened, but he finds himself smiling anyway.

-

Harry corners Paul later that afternoon, because over the course of the day he convinces himself that the whole conversation must’ve been a weird, oddly specific dream, if only because it’d happened just on the edge of sleep, and Louis hasn’t mentioned it again, even though they’d sat next to each other during lunch with the band. But when he presses Paul about it, he sighs with the air of a valiantly wounded soldier and confirms Louis’ story.

“Not a whole week, though,” he says firmly to Harry. “You can do it in five days. Can’t get you any more than that.”

“Sure you can,” Harry says happily. “Gotta be a week. Doin’ it proper, like.”

“I can’t,” says Paul.

Harry just cocks his head at him, trying to look somehow stern and innocent all at once. He’s not sure if it’s effective at all, or if Paul just gets tired of looking at him making faces, but after a moment, he throws his hands up.

“Fine. A week. _One_ week. If you’re a day later than that I’ll come find you myself and kill you both.” He pauses, and makes his particular _strategic thinking_ face. “Can I at least arrange a sensible car for you two idiots?” he asks.

Harry beams.

-

They’re leaving early the next morning, it’s decided. Paul says the sooner they go, the sooner this stupid idea will be over, and Harry just nods like he’s letting Paul make the decision for him. For his part, Harry can’t think of any reason to hang about when they could be on their way, so it’s all the same to him.

While he’s lounging in the dressing room before the final show -- the final show on this leg, _Jesus_ , Harry has no idea how this tour’s going by so quickly -- Louis flops down beside Harry on the sofa. He’s at a safe distance like always, but he’s boneless and relaxed as he nudges at Harry’s mobile in his hands with one socked foot.

“So you’ve got a route in mind?” Louis asks.

Harry nods, and shakes the hair out of his face. “Few different ways, but, yeah. Depends on where you want to go, I guess? There’s a way that goes through Vegas, but--”

Louis crinkles his nose and shakes his head.

“Didn’t much fancy that either,” Harry admits. Las Vegas is well fun, but he wants something from this trip, and it’s not crowds, or neon lights. It’s something bigger than that, something wilder. “What if we went through, like--”

“Hang on,” Louis interrupts. “Don’t tell me, actually.”

Harry smiles and frowns all at once, curiously. “Why?”

“Dunno. Don’t wanna know,” Louis says, shrugging and shaking his fringe off his face. “I’d rather be surprised, so humor me, Hazza, okay?”

“Okay,” Harry agrees slowly, smiling. If that’s what Louis wants, he can do that. He can absolutely do that.

-

He’s not sure if it’s just because it’s an ending, the culmination of months on tour and the energy built up from four performances in a row in the same place, but the show that night feels more alive than any of the rest. The five of them bounce against each other and then spiral off again, coming together so their voices rise and converge to the very furthest corners of the venue, and Harry remembers with breathtaking clarity why this is what he wants to be doing for the rest of his life.

Harry can _feel_ Louis all night, too, even though they don’t come any closer to each other than usual. Harry wonders if it’s the tether of plans, of _a_ plan, a secret between just the two of them (and Paul, and the other lads, yeah, but it still feels all their own) that, if not able to shrink the requisite distance they have to keep between the two of them, at least makes a tentative sort of bridge across it.

At the very end, at the last notes of _What Makes You Beautiful_ , he decides he doesn’t particularly care, because they’ve all got their arms slung around each other, and Louis doesn’t feel quite so far, and the blood in his veins is thrumming ecstatically in a way that makes it hard for him to feel sore about anything at all.

In the huddle afterward, nearly shaking with adrenaline and tucked under Niall’s sweaty armpit, Harry feels Louis’ fingers graze the back of his damp neck, resting there for an instant before flitting away.

“Love you lads,” Niall says. “Now are you lot ready to get pissed?”

-

Even though there’s a throbbing fuzz at the base of his skull from what was probably one vodka shot too many -- that’s all Niall’s fault -- Harry’s out of bed as soon as his alarm goes the next morning. It’s bloody _early_ , the sun only just barely beginning to lighten the furthest edge of the sky, but they’re meant to start out by seven at the latest, which Harry knows will actually be more like eight once all is said and done. Louis will be ready when he’s ready, and Harry takes his time showering, packing up the last of the bags he’s bringing with that won’t be sent on ahead of him, and making a cup of tea.

None of the other boys are awake yet to see them off, although Harry hadn’t expected it from them anyway. Niall could still be awake and downing pints somewhere, for all Harry knows, since that’s exactly what he’d been doing when Harry finally begged off sometime between one and two last night.

Anyway, they’ll see them again in less than two weeks, which still seems like an enormous stretch of time to be off, but probably really isn’t in the grand scheme of it all.

 _Get your arse down here_ , Paul texts him at quarter to eight. _Finally pried Louis out of bed and I’m tired of the sight of him so you lot need to get on the road._

Harry smiles at his phone, and send back a string of heart emojis before downing the very last of his tepid green tea and slinging his bag over his shoulder.

Louis and Paul are near the buses, gathered around the sleek black car Paul must’ve arranged for them. He can see Louis’ duffel chucked haphazardly into the back seat and puts his own in the boot, shutting the trunk.

When Paul is apparently satisfied that there’s nothing else for him to try and prevent from descending into chaos, he sends them off with simultaneous cuffs to the back of both their necks, and tells them to have fun in a way that somehow comes out like a warning.

Harry takes the drivers seat, and the doors thunk shut around them, and then it’s just him and Louis, following the sat nav’s direction onto the highway as the sun starts to rise through the morning haze.

“So this is it, huh?” Louis asks, squinting into the bright, sideways sun as it beckons them east.

“Yep,” Harry agrees, shoving his sunglasses onto his nose. He stares down the road, already busy even this early, and squints, trying to decide if he can fit between a Jeep and a Mercedes on the on-ramp. “This is it.”

Louis nods, and Harry pulls out carefully onto the interstate.

They don’t speak for at least an hour, after that.

-

In theory, it shouldn’t be that unusual. The two of them have probably driven more collective miles together in the last three years than most people will in a lifetime, starting what feels like a million years ago with the X Factor tour. They’ve been in tight, confined spaces. They’ve been in buses and hired cars and private planes and all sorts of modes of transport, and somehow this – a nondescript, rented sedan – is the strangest of all.

Louis fiddles with the radio, scrunching his nose at an old country song that Harry thinks about telling him to stop on. He doesn’t, and Louis eventually stops at a pop station.

“This all right?” he asks between LMFAO and Katy Perry. Harry nods, but three songs later, they hear the opening bars of “What Makes You Beautiful” start to spill out of the speakers, familiar and strange even still. Halfway through the second verse, Louis wrinkles his nose at his own voice and switches the radio off decisively.

“Always liked that band,” Harry says, going for something like wry. “Fit lads the lot of them.”

Louis snorts, and knocks his head against the glass of the window a bit. “Dunno ‘bout the curly one, though,” he says, smiling and not looking at Harry.

Harry smiles down the road.

They talk after that, at least. Louis tells Harry something long and involved about the Rovers that Harry doesn’t particularly follow, but makes Louis wave his hands around in a way that he likes all the same. He reads billboards idly, like he’s reciting to himself rather than Harry, describing advertisements for laser hair removal and car dealerships and movies, and eventually, L.A. disappears behind them as if into a fog, as if it was never there at all.

It’s eight hours from L.A. to lake St. George, Utah, and Harry can’t tell if it goes by in a flash or takes a lifetime.

-

Paul’s booked them two suites for the night in a hotel, all glass and chrome and designed for posh businessmen to stopover for meetings and maybe some skiing on the company dime. It’d been a concession, Harry letting him find them a place to stay, at least for the first night. “I’ll feel better if I know where you are for at least a day,” Paul had said, and Harry had just shrugged, deciding not to press his luck.

They’ll be on their own the rest of the trip, anyway, free to stop where they like, when they like. They could disappear, if they wanted to. Even though Harry’s promised to check in with Paul at least once a day, the thought is almost mouth-watering -- he can’t remember the last time he went somewhere without anyone else knowing about it before he even got there.

They can go absolutely anywhere they like.

The things is, though, now that they’re checked into the hotel and standing in the foyer of Louis’ room, Harry’s not sure what they’re meant to do.

“There’s a restaurant downstairs, I think?” Harry suggest, chewing absently on the side of his thumb. He remembers seeing a sign for a steakhouse or something attached to the hotel, and it’s too early for dinner if you’re under the age of sixty, but that’s all he can come up with. His hands feel useless, dangling down at the side of his body with nothing in particular to do with them. At least in the car, he’d had to grasp the steering wheel.

“Dunno if we better,” Louis says. “If, like, no one’s meant to know we’re here, y’know? Only it looked crowded when we checked in.” It’s cautious statement, and Harry wonders if it’s a bit regretful, or if he’d just like to hear it that way.

He understands what Louis means, though. That’s part of what he wants from this, and he’s told Louis – he’s got no idea if it’s possible to achieve, but he’d really love it if they could get to New York without anyone realizing where they are. He wants this to be theirs, just theirs, and there’s not really any reason to believe they could sit down for a meal at a posh, crowded restaurant and not be noticed. It’s just… how it is.

But whatever it is he wants from this trip, it’s certainly not grainy iPhone shots of him and Louis in a restaurant together, alone in Utah, popping up on Twitter within the hour.

So that’s out.

“Suppose we could always get room service,” he says. It feels conciliatory, and it makes him frown a bit. He’s had room service for five months, basically.

But there’s nothing else for it. So he calls and orders them up burgers, giving them the name Greg James for no particular reason when they ask for one. His had avocados and sprouts on it and Louis rolls his eyes at it dramatically while he loudly chews his own bacon burger from the other bed. It makes Harry pleased in a strange way, for a moment, which is – well. He’d thought he’d mostly gotten over the bit where he squirms happily under Louis making fun of him, but apparently not.

After they eat they sit on their opposite beds while an episode of Friends finishes on the television. When it’s done, it feels suddenly like that’s very much his cue to go, so Harry climbs slowly off the bed.

He waits to see if Louis will tell him to stay, but he gets it most of the way to the door and all Louis does is wave slightly and pull out his phone, so he slips out into the hallway, padding down the carpet to find his own suite on the opposite end of the floor.

When he gets there, it’s like Louis’ suite exactly, except in reverse. There are low tables and chrome finishes and it’s clearly meant to be a nice place to stop, if a bit impersonal, showing off how it’s not a shit chain and still missing the mark of anything notable. It’s disorientingly familiar for somewhere he’s never been.

The uncomfortable itch of déjà vu doesn’t subside until after he calls his mum to say hello and then Instagrams a picture of his phone charger. After that, he’s out of things to do, so he goes to bed before it’s even ten o’clock, leaving his phone just beside him in case Louis decides to call, ask him to come back and watch a film or something.

He doesn’t, and Harry’s asleep within the hour, feeling dissatisfied and unsure how to explain why.

-

Harry wakes up on the edge of lightness and dark, the rising sun just starting to creep in through the gray of the morning where he’s left his curtains open partway. The room is still big around him, and conspicuously empty, so much like every hotel room he’s slept in for the last five months that for the first time, it’s disorienting. He knows where he is, but it still feels like it’s bleeding over into a hundred other rented beds, a hundred other mornings in hotel-white linens like a superimposed photograph that won’t line up quite right.

He grabs his mobile from the table beside the bed and frowns at it. He checks the time, and the weather, and nearby shops and when they open. He thinks, and then shoves the duvet off, finding his jeans and shoes and walks downstairs before he changes his mind.

The rental car is still parked in the same spot in the covered lot, and the street is quiet as he drives.

-

He knocks on Louis’ door an hour later, shifting the car keys from one hand to the other and back again. He’d loaded his bags into the trunk when he’d gotten back, packed in among the plastic bags from the shop, and he’s been trying to wait patiently for Louis to wake on his own, but the sun is up properly now, well past nine, and he doesn’t think he can wait much longer.

“I’m back,” he tells Louis when he opens the door a crack.

Louis blinks at him several times before pulling it open wide enough for Harry to come through. “You were gone?” he asks, padding across the carpeting in his bare feet to follow Harry to the other side of the room where the picture window spreads across the wall. Louis’ view is nicer than Harry’s had been. There are red-tipped mountains in the background, and something about the sight of them, remote and ancient and unmoving, makes Harry feel calmer, if just for a moment.

“Went to get some things,” Harry says vaguely, kicking at the carpet with the toe of his scuffed boot. Louis is apparently packing his case again, so Harry plops on the bed to wait for him while he finishes.

“Things?” Louis asks curiously, but Harry just shrugs vaguely. He doesn’t want to give himself away, not quite yet.

“Some stuff, too,” he says, pulling the half-smile he knows works on just about everyone. It makes Louis roll his eyes, but smile, too, so he counts it as a win. This feels normal, or at least, closer to it.

“So we’ve got stuff and things, then,” Louis says, kicking shut the lid of his suitcase and bending over to zip it. Nothing inside of it is even remotely folded, and it’s bulging out at the sides so that Louis eventually has to clamp it between his thighs to get it to close properly. He eyes it suspiciously when he’s done, but apparently deems it acceptable, because he lugs it over to sit beside the door.

“Yep,” Harry says, popping the last _p_ in his mouth a bit. “Ready?”

“As ever,” Louis says, and lifts up his bag.

-

The landscape as they drive is remote and wild. Up close it’s all brown shrubs, zooming along just outside the car as the sun slants higher into the sky, but there are mountains off in the distance that seem too far to touch until suddenly they’re in them. The car feels cool and close, and Louis is barefoot, fiddling with the radio as signals flit in and out.

Utah gives way to Colorado, eventually, and Harry only bungles a side trip to a drive through burger restaurant in a town that’s more of two stoplights than anything a bit when he gets on the highway the wrong way, forcing them to backtrack for a while before they can turn around. He figures it out quickly enough, at least, when he realizes that the sun isn’t glaring in his eyes from the same angle any longer.

Louis only laughs at him a bit.

It’s nice, actually -- Louis laughs at him then, and again when he can’t figure out a petrol pump (there’s a strange little lever he’s meant to flip, apparently), and it feels nice, to suddenly have Louis’ attention focused on him this way, teasing and full-on. He’s tired of Louis being gentle with him like they’re strangers -- he’d much rather have Louis throwing bits of his straw wrapper in his hair any day.

With almost preternatural timing, Louis starts to get fidgety around five in the evening, nearly nine hours after they’d set out, and just about where Harry’d planned for them to call it a day. They’ve been driving in the mountains for a while, now, twisting up and down them, in the heart of a bloody enormous forest. The scale of it all is more than Harry can quite process.

“Where are we stopping?” Louis asks. His bare feet are kicked up on the dashboard, toes flexing absently.

“Um, soon,” Harry says, squinting at the road. He thinks there’ll be a turnoff soon. There’s meant to be, at least, unless the sat nav’s lied to him. “Really soon. I think.”

“Here?” Louis asks skeptically, peering out the window at the green blur of pine trees passing by. “Y’know we’re in the middle of nowhere, right?”

Harry nods, keeping his eyes straight ahead. “Yep.”

“Okay,” Louis says slowly. “And we’re stopping soon, despite that?”

“Yep.”

“So… we’re sleeping in the forest, then?” Louis asks again, raising a dubious eyebrow.

Harry feels himself flush at that, and smiles. “It sounds stupid when you say it like that,” he says.

Louis squints at him curiously, and Harry can only see him out of the periphery of his vision, but he can see a hint of a smile all the same. “Okay. Say it in a way that doesn’t sound stupid.”

“I thought,” Harry says, easing the brake as they come around a bend. “We could, um, camp? I went out and got some things this morning. Like, a tent and stuff.”

He sees a sign for the campsite, then, just a tiny wooden thing with a rough sketch of a tent painted onto it and an arrow directing them down a narrow dirt lane. He turns down it carefully, the boughs of the fir trees so close that they tap against the window beside Louis’ head.

Louis doesn’t answer beyond a quiet, curious hum. Harry isn’t sure if that’s good or not -- although if Louis truly thought it was a stupid idea, he’d probably say so, at least. So there’s that, maybe.

“It’s just--” Harry shifts in the seat, craning his head to see down the path as it curves through a particularly thick clutch of trees. “The last place was so crowded, y’know? And we couldn’t, like--” He bites his lip, because he really wants to get this right, and the words aren’t coming to him. “I don’t want to sit alone in another hotel room all night, yeah?”

The path opens up into a car park, then, more a swath of packed down dirt than anything. There’s a beat-up Jeep in the far corner, and nothing else.

“D’you know what I mean?” he asks, parking the car carefully and shutting off the engine. He can almost feel it, once he does, the familiar purr that’s been running underneath everything the whole day shutting off, transforming into a silence that somehow feels even noisier.

“I think so, yeah,” Louis says slowly, nodding and squinting into the trees. There’s a small path just ahead of them that angles down a hill, and if the website Harry’d found that morning is to be believed, it ends at a lake where they can set up camp for the night.

“So it’s -- this is okay?” Harry asks, biting the edge of his thumb and staring through the windscreen. He really, really wants it to be okay.

Louis looks to be considering, when Harry glances over, but then his face settles and he nods. “‘Course, yeah. It’ll be good. Get in touch with our inner lumberjacks, right?” He grins a bit dangerously, then, and Harry is more than a little glad that there’s nothing in the car that could conceivably be used to chop down a tree, or anything else.

They climb out of the car, Harry shouldering the bag holding the little two-man tent he’d bought earlier, and Louis taking the sleeping bags. The woods are thick as soon as they step into them, the small path leading towards the lake narrow and shadowed as they set off down it. There’s something quietly alive about it -- there’s no one here besides the two of them, as far as Harry can tell, but the whisper of the leaves in the wind and the chirrups of unseen birds seem to fill the woods up with something kinetic and wild.

It’s less than five minutes before they come around a curve and find themselves spit out in front of an enormous blue lake, ringed by towering green fir trees and on the far shores, a sharp ridge of mountains pointing skyward. The few puffy white clouds that scatter the sky are reflected back in double on the still surface of the lake. It’s so beautiful that Harry has to stop for a moment just to gaze at it.

Louis lets out a low whistle beside him, setting their sleeping bags on the ground next to a ring of stones with the last few traces of a fire inside. “Christ, Styles, you know how to pick ‘em.” He sounds suitably impressed, though, shading his eyes with his hand and looking around slowly.

“Dumb luck,” Harry admits, because it mostly had been -- there’s not much skill to typing in _Colorado secluded campsites_ on a mobile in a dark hotel room. But if it pleases Louis, he’ll take it as a win anyway.

“You’re supposed to take credit for it,” Louis tells him. He flops down on the ground, then, dropping his forearms over his knees.

“Oh,” Harry says, folding himself down just beside Louis. “Okay, then. In that case, this was my master plan all along?”

Louis nods approvingly. “Better.”

They stay like that for a bit, just the two of them and their rolled up sleeping bags, the furled-up tent, listening to the soft lap of the lake on the pebbly beach.

“Should probably get our bags,” Louis says eventually -- he sounds a bit regretful, like he doesn’t particularly want to make the short walk again. He starts to pull a face, the one Harry knows is going to mean _you should do it for me_ , and he shakes his head before Louis can manage.

“Nope,” he says, standing up to his full height and twisting a bit. There’s a twinge in his back from being in the car all day, and he half-heartedly tries to stretch it away. “You’re coming with me, get up.” He toes Louis’ Vans with his own foot, trying to nudge him off the ground.

“You used to be a lot easier to boss around,” Louis complains, but he hoists himself up and brushes off his bum before gesturing for Harry to lead the way back to the car park.

“This is nice,” Harry says as they trudge along. “Never really get to do this sort of thing.”

“Camped in Sweden,” Louis says, kicking a pinecone enthusiastically.

“Suppose,” Harry says. “That wasn’t really the same, though. And, y’know. Things have been, like… with us, you know…”

He trails off, not sure what he means to say. Louis is a pace ahead of him, and stops, turning around to peer curiously at Harry when he doesn’t continue.

“Things have been what?” Louis asks, an unhappy little smile curling slowly across his mouth.

Harry shrugs, shoving his hands in the pockets of his tight jeans. He’s not dressed for camping, he realizes suddenly, too-tight jeans and a thin, billowy shirt. He’s even got his boots on instead of proper trainers.

“Weird,” he says slowly, carefully stepping around Louis to continue up the path. He suddenly feels like he’s made a misstep.

“I’m sorry, _weird_?” Louis asks, taking several quick steps to catch up. His eyebrows are raised, and his voice has gone a bit hard, and Harry focuses on walking in a straight line. They’re nearly to the car park.

“Only a bit, I mean,” he explains. “Just… you know. You know what I mean.”

They round a bend and come upon the car, but Louis doesn’t make a move to help Harry haul out their overnight bags. Instead he positions himself between Harry and the car, crossing his arms and standing in the way he does when he’s about to be impossible -- feet apart, looking just above Harry’s eyes with a challenging expression.

“No,” he says. “Tell me. How are things _weird_ between us?”

Harry puts up his hands a bit helplessly. Louis _must_ know -- bloody _everyone_ knows. They’re mates, and they always will be, no great falling out, or like, secret heartbreak or whatever everyone else seems to think has happened between them, but it’s suddenly sitting unpleasantly in Harry’s stomach, how Louis is pretending that nothing’s changed at all. That they’re still the same teenagers without any idea of how to put space between themselves or be apart for longer than a day. That there wasn’t a reason they’re on this bloody trip together, and that it was so hard for Harry to get Louis to come along in the first place.

Harry’s not saying he _likes_ this, the way it is now, but he won’t pretend it’s otherwise just because of that either.

“Don’t be like this, Lou,” he says, almost disappointed when it comes out a bit pleading. He doesn’t -- this isn’t what he wants to do. Not now. They only have a _week_ , just the two of them, and it’s meant to _help_ , not wedge them farther apart.  He doesn’t want to waste it on a row.

“Be like what?” Louis bites. He’s angry, now, Harry can tell. “ _Weird_?”

“I don’t want to fight,” Harry mumbles, dodging around Louis so he can fish their overnight bags out of the car. He shuts the door too heavily once he does, and the slam echoes angrily in the small clearing, out of place and jarring.

“Oh, well,” Louis says, his voice tight and mocking. “If that’s what Harry Styles wants, then that’s what he’ll get, isn’t it? Always gets his way, doesn’t he.”

“Hey,” Harry says, frowning. That’s -- that smarts, and he supposes that’s exactly why Louis said it.

“No, tell me,” Louis insists. “‘S’just you and me, innit? For the next week. So if it’s _weird_ , being with my best mate, I’d love to know why, because I wasn’t aware it was.”

That hits Harry right in the stomach. Louis hasn’t referred to him as his _best mate_ in… ages. And to be fair, neither has Harry, but it still makes him reel a bit to feel the weight of it flung at him like that, just so Louis can feign ignorance to make a point.

“I’m not--knock it off, Louis,” he says as firmly as he can. “Can we please just go back and set up the tent?”

“Set it up yourself,” Louis snaps, picking an invisible fleck of something off his shirt with too much force. “This whole thing was your idea, anyway, camping. Didn’t even want to do it in the first place.”

Harry closes his eyes and tries not to stamp his feet, but it’s hard when Louis is being so purposefully difficult, and he’s _tired_ , and this isn’t how he wanted this to go.

“Yes you did,” he says instead. If Louis _really_ hadn’t wanted to camp -- wanted to go on this trip at _all_ \-- he wouldn’t have agreed to it. It’s impossible to get Louis to do anything he doesn’t want to.

“I only agreed because you wanted to so badly,” Louis disagrees. “Stupid.”

Harry doesn’t know if Louis means it was a stupid idea, or that it was stupid of him to agree. Probably whichever one sticks worse in Harry’s chest.

“Well you’re here now,” Harry says shortly, something unpleasant and hot suddenly flaring in his chest. It’s unfamiliar. He remembers what Zayn had said in L.A., about how Harry can’t get mad. He thinks Zayn had been wrong. “Make the best of it.”

Louis’ face scrunches up and he crosses his arms over his chest.

“I wonder if my mobile works out here,” he says. It’s too loud to be idle musing. Harry’s clearly meant to hear it, and anyway, Harry knows what it looks like when Louis wants attention, wants a reaction. He’s been on the end of it too many times to not know it like the inside of his own palm.

“Dunno,” Harry says briskly.

“Maybe I’ll just call Paul if it does,” Louis carries on. “Could get a ride out of here by tonight, I bet. Hire a car from the nearest city, get to an airport.”

He’s doing it for a reaction. Harry _knows_ it. Pushing buttons is something Louis excels at, always has done. And not even in a malicious way, really -- just in the sort of way where he knows exactly how to prod the people around him into reacting a certain way. Louis _knows_ people. And he knows how to use that knowledge almost devastatingly when he wants to.

“Fine,” Harry says, running one of his hands restlessly through his hair. “Y’know what, fine. You do whatever you like, I’m going back.” He turns away from the car and starts down the trail that twists through the woods back to the lake and their tent.

He knows Louis is bluffing, that he won’t actually leave, but he still assumes Louis will stay by the car for a bit, maybe pull out his mobile to busy himself while he sulks. Which is fine with Harry, honestly, because right now he feels too hot, and thinks he’s about as close to wanting to deck Louis as he’s ever gotten.

It’s not _fair_ , is the thing. It’s not fair that Louis puts this all on Harry, makes it out that Harry’s the only one who’s got anything to do with the way things went off between them, because Harry might not get it right all the time, but he’s not the only one. He _tries_ , and Louis should at least acknowledge it. Harry thinks he deserves it. They both do.

The realization that he’s actually, properly upset -- not just upset but _angry_ \-- sits foreignly in his mind as he stomps down the path. For a moment he thinks he ought to call Zayn, let him know that he’d been wrong, that Harry _can_ be selfishly angry and irrational. It is irrational, too, because even as he stalks off, he absolutely hates the thought of Louis actually following through on his threat and leaving. He wants Louis with him, almost _always_ wants Louis with him, but at the same time, he also wants to put distance between them now, wants to leave Louis pouting by the car while Harry indulges in the twisty, upset feeling that’s warping his stomach. He thinks Louis won’t like that, much, not if he thinks he’s the one being left behind, and the idea makes Harry shamefully pleased.

As he walks back through the woods, though, he hears the snap of twigs behind him, following tentatively a few paces back. He grits his teeth and ignores it for as long as he can, makes it nearly halfway to the lake before he pauses at the top of a hill that arcs slowly down to the campsite.

“D’you have to follow me?” Harry asks, sighing and turning around. “Right now? At this moment?” Louis’ standing there, a few paces behind him on the trail, one foot still hanging absurdly several inches in the air, paused in the middle of a step. He lowers it slowly to the ground and stands there with his feet apart, arms crossed over his chest defensively.

“I’m not _following_ you,” he says petulantly, but now his voice smaller than usual.

“You’re walking directly behind me,” Harry says slowly. “You’re literally doing the exact definition of following me.”

“There’s only one path,” Louis responds, arms still clasped over his chest. There’s a breeze that rustles the trees around them, and Louis runs his hands over his bare upper arms a few times as it touches them, cool and soft. “I’m just going back to camp, is all. To have a wee.”

Harry sighs again. He’s too tired to do this right now. He’s been tired for a long time, it feels like. “It’s a forest. You can have a wee anywhere you like, y’don’t need to follow me to do it.”

Louis is silent for another moment, but he shuffles his feet in closer together, taking up less space now.

“I’ll get lost,” he says. “Or eaten by a bear.”

“You won’t,” Harry tells him. “Just go piss somewhere else, yeah?”

Louis doesn’t say anything, just stands there uneasily, and he looks torn between staying right where he is and running off, back to the car or off into the woods, wherever he can get the furthest away from Harry. He stays put, though.

The terrible thing, Harry knows, is that he doesn’t actually want Louis to go anywhere else. He wants him to follow him back down to the tent at the edge of the lake just as much as he wants him to fuck off. He wants Louis to follow him _everywhere_ , wants Louis to pick him instead of anything else, and that’s always been it, hasn’t it? He’s always wanted Louis too much, even when he oughtn’t, even when it gets him in trouble. Even now when he’s trying to do the smart thing, trying to tell Louis to piss off so he can put even an inch of space between the two of them that he can try to breathe in, he can’t quite make himself mean it all the way.

Louis still doesn’t move, just looks at Harry with an almost desperate look on his face, and Harry can tell he still wants to scarper, but he’s refusing to let himself. It’s almost a little vindicating, Harry thinks, to know that he’s not the only one who can’t manage to force himself to do the smart thing.

“Fine,” he says after a moment, letting his hands fall at his sides. “Do whatever you want, then.”

He turns and heads down the path, feeling it angle downhill under his feet. It’s silent behind him for a moment, but then he hears Louis’ footsteps pick up again, following from a slightly greater distance this time.

Louis follows him all the way to the campsite, albeit at a distance of several paces, and hovers near the perimeter of the clearing while Harry drops their bags and sits down heavily on a log, prodding uselessly at the pile of wood near the fire pit with a stick.

“Look,” Louis says eventually. “‘M sorry.” He shifts uncomfortably and kicks at a rock near the fire pit, sending it skittering past them until it plunks into the lake. Briefly, Harry wishes he could stay angry in the face of Louis’ apology, because Louis’ been a twat and he _deserves_ it, but Harry feels the tension running out of him straight away no matter how hard he tries to hold onto his outrage. Louis doesn’t apologize, is the thing. Not unless he means it, not unless he knows he’s pushed too far, and even then, it costs him.

“I don’t -- I don’t know how to do this,” Louis continues. “Like… camping,” he clarifies uneasily, and Harry knows that’s not what he means at all. “I’m no good at it.”

“At camping,” Harry repeats.

“Yeah,” Louis says, and then tentatively, he creeps over towards Harry and sits next to him on the log, only just enough room for the two of them to share it. “Used to be pretty good at, um. Camping. And now I’m like. Out of practice.”

“‘S’all right,” Harry shrugs. “I reckon I am too.”

“Yeah?” Louis asks, and Harry can’t help but smile as he nods at him.

They sit there long enough for the last cramped feeling of anger to drain away from Harry’s stomach. Once they do, it’s actually quite nice -- the two of them, and the view, and the weight of everything else lifting up and away. Slowly, but lifting.

Eventually, though, Harry realizes they’ve still got a tent to assemble, and that might be even more complicated than anything else so far. He stands from the log and brushes his hands off on his thighs.

“C’mon, get up,” Harry instructs Louis, hoping it sounds authoritative. “Tent time. You have to help.” It’s only a partially selfish demand, because nobody deserves to sleep in a tent that’s been left solely to Harry to assemble.

“Overseeing is a kind of helping,” Louis says, watching Harry dump out the bag of poles and nylon near a flat spot. It comes out airy, but a bit tentative, like he’s not sure if he’s quite allowed to joke yet, but he’s determined to try anyway. Either way, he doesn’t bother to get up. “People go to school for it, like. Whatsit. Management techniques.”

“Sitting on your arse isn’t managing,” Harry huffs with a smile, flipping the instruction pamphlet over several times.

“We’ll you’re hardly _managing_ either,” Louis says, raising an eyebrow at the pile of supplies tangled around Harry’s ankles. Harry snorts out a laugh before he can help himself.

Louis eventually stands up, though, pretending to frown at the mess Harry’s made before kneeling down and beginning to sort it out.

-

In the end, it’s nearly dark by the time they finish putting the tent up. It leans, but only a bit, and in the opposite direction that the wind’s blowing in from, so Harry reckons it’ll balance itself out like that.

When they’re finished, Louis manages to haul a single fat piece of fallen wood into the fire pit and actually coax it into burning with a few flicks of the plastic lighter he’s got in his pocket. Harry’s pretty sure you’re meant to use, like, kindling or something, and as far as he can tell, Louis hasn’t. But he’s always been strangely adept at setting things on fire with limited resources, and Harry supposes he oughtn’t look a gift horse in the mouth, especially given how it’s suddenly much cooler now that the sun’s dipped below the opposite end of the lake.

There’s a load of snacks shoved into Harry’s bag from the last service station they’d stopped at, so that’s their dinner -- crisps and bland sandwiches and gummy candy and one mealy apple Harry’d gotten out of a machine. They eat in silence, perched in front of the fire on their log, and for the first time in ages, Harry thinks the quiet between them feels comfortable instead of suffocating.

Louis is licking neon orange cheesy dust from his fingers when a twig snaps loudly behind them, just where the small spit of beach turns into forest too dense to see through. It’s startling enough that they both nearly tumble off the log in surprise; one of Harry’s hands flails out to catch himself, and lands on Louis’ leg just above his knee. He keeps it there for a moment like an anchor, his whole body suddenly on alert, straining to hear any other sounds that might come next. Enormous wildcats or bears lumbering out to eat them, for instance.

Nothing comes, though, and after a moment, he pries his hand away from Louis’ leg. Louis huffs out a shaky laugh, breathing a bit heavily.

“Jesus,” he says, pressing one hand to his chest dramatically. “The fuck was that, do you think?”

Harry frowns into the darkness, but he can’t see anything -- the firelight only flickers as far as their tent, and beyond that, it’s nearly pure black. He’d forgotten it could get so bloody dark outside of cities and venues and hotels that stay lit-up all night; he can’t quite tell if it’s soothing or a bit unnerving, now, to be so far from that, alone under a sky of too many stars. Alone with God knows what else in the woods. Alone with Louis.

“Dunno,” he says slowly. “Um, just out of curiosity -- what is it you’re meant to do with bears, if you come across one? Are they the ones you try to shout at, or do you play dead?”

Louis recoils. “Bears?” he asks, voice kicking up an octave. “You’ve brought me someplace with _bears_?”

“Probably not,” Harry says, trying to sound reassuring. “I mean, no. Definitely not. That was probably like, a rabbit.”

 _Probably_ , he thinks.

“I’m going to be so out of sorts with you if a bear eats me tonight,” Louis says, keeping his eyes narrowed and trained on the treeline. “I mean it. Can you imagine? Louis Tomlinson, eaten by bears. The indignity.”

“Nothing’s gonna eat you,” Harry says. He thinks about it, and then slings an arm around Louis’ shoulder, tugging him closer. It’s not the sort of thing he’s done in ages, but he _wants_ to, and anyway, Louis still fits right up against him, once he lets himself relax.

They sit like that for a long moment, until the adrenaline has coursed out of them, leaving just the two of them in the flickering warmth of Louis’ uneven fire.

“You gonna protect me if anything tries, though?” Louis asks quietly, a hint of a smile that Harry can’t see from this angle in his voice.

“Obviously,” Harry says, letting himself tuck his nose into Louis’ hair for a moment -- just a moment -- before letting go, standing up from the log gracelessly. “Whatever it was has gone, though, I think,” he says, and then nods towards the mostly-upright tent. “‘M gonna turn in. You coming?”

Louis shrugs, tucking his shoulders up around him and leaning towards the fire. “In a moment, yeah,” he says, smiling at something in the embers.

“Put that out when you do,” Harry says, and then stumbles into the tent, leaving the flap unzipped a bit behind him.

Their stiff new sleeping bags are spread out on the floor of the tent, waiting for them. There’s barely any room, so they overlap at the edges. They’re probably the sort that you can zip together, now that Harry thinks about it. He considers them for a long moment, lying there side by side, then kicks his shoes off to a corner and settles into the one closest to the edge of the forest. Louis can have the one near the lake, he thinks -- if a man-eating bear does trudge out of the trees in the middle of the night, they’ll probably both be fucked anyway, but at least it’ll probably go for Harry first.

He doesn’t know if that technically counts as _protecting_ Louis from bears, not when they both end up food in the end, but it’s the best he’s got, so he goes with it, and snuggles down into the sleeping bag with the feeling that he’s somehow gotten something right despite himself.

-

An hour later, Harry realizes the problem with camping, and the tent especially: the problem with the tent is that it’s on the ground. Or, really, the problem is that the ground is covered in rocks and twigs and other sharp things that keep poking Harry squarely in his softest parts, and the tent is directly on top of them.

He sighs restlessly and shifts again -- the tenth time in almost as many minutes, he reckons. As he does, something that feels a bit like a razor blade jabs him dead in the ribs.

If he’s being honest, though, really, awfully honest, he’s got an even bigger problem with this tent anyway; namely, how small it is, and how he’s got nowhere to go that isn’t pressed directly against Louis’ back.

It wouldn’t be so bad, he thinks, except for how somewhere along the way, his body’s gone all traitorous and decided that this is the perfect opportunity for an unusually tenacious erection, one that he can’t will away no matter how many times he pictures Paul naked. That usually works well enough, but apparently not tonight.

It’s -- it’s just confused, Harry thinks, trying to angle his hips away so that they don’t press directly into Louis’ arse. The tent is small and tight, which is why they’re cuddled so close together in the first place, Louis’ back to Harry’s chest. When Louis’d stumbled in shortly after Harry he’d been careful not to touch, but there wasn’t anything for it in the close quarters, and after a moment, he’d carefully scooted up against Harry, and wrapped Harry’s arm firmly over his chest so he couldn’t get away, not even if he wanted to.

So it’s just -- it’s a proximity thing. Harry doesn’t think about -- he doesn’t think, full stop. He doesn’t think about it anymore, his prick in conjunction with Louis, hasn’t in years, despite what anyone else seems to think. He’s not pining over Louis, or secretly shagging him. They were never in love; they were never in anything. It’s just that Louis is _here_ , and he’s close and he’s warm, and Harry’s probably still amped up from the bear attack that never came, and he hasn’t fucked anyone in _weeks_. More than a month, possibly. So there’s nothing to the fact that as soon as Louis’ pulled Harry’s arm across his chest, breathing warmly on his knuckles where they laid near his mouth, Harry’d started to go hard in his jeans.

It’d be the same if he’d been sleeping next to Liam or Niall, he tells himself, and he certainly isn’t secretly gone for either of them. So it doesn’t mean anything that it’s Louis, Louis who’s an inch from his cock that shows no signs of going down, Louis who he can’t force himself to roll away from even though he knows he ought to.

It’s just, Louis hasn’t pulled him in this close for age. He can’t quite bring himself to move away, to end this moment now that he’s got it, even in the interest of saving himself the eventual embarrassment of getting caught out with a hard-on from a bit of light cuddling.

Louis shifts, then, moving in closer, and there’s nothing for it -- his arse is against Harry’s cock now. He swallows down the noise he can feel himself starting to make before anything comes of it -- he thinks, he _hopes_ that Louis is asleep, and he doesn’t want to wake him now if he is.

He suspects that might be wishful thinking, however. Louis falls asleep easily, anywhere, but he’s also a light sleeper, startled awake at the slightest thing, like he can never quite let himself relax all the way, even in sleep. He also shifts around in his sleep, and mumbles, making his presence known the same as he does when he’s awake. Right now, except for the way he’s shifted back slightly into Harry’s space, he’s holding himself very still.

The idea alarms Harry more than he’d like to admit.

If he _is_ awake, there’s no way he’s missing Harry dick pressing against him. Not with the way they’re so close, not with how thin the sleeping bags are. God, Harry almost wishes Louis was awake for certain, because then he could just take the piss out of him, make fun of Harry until his face went red, and then it’d be over.

But if he is awake, he gives no hint to it, breathing steadily, holding Harry’s arm firmly in place over his chest. Harry doesn’t know what to do with that, not even slightly. He wishes his cock would lose interest, but it’s all he can think about, now -- how hard he is, and how near Louis is. How easy it would be to --

He stops that thought before it can finish itself.

 _It’s nothing to do with Louis_ , he tells himself, holding himself very still. Louis breathes out of his nose heavily, and Harry shifts his hips as best he can without being obscene, resigning himself to the idea that he’s in this for the long haul.

_Nothing._

He tells himself that over and over like a mantra, timing it to Louis’ breaths. By the time he finally drifts off, he’s repeated it so many times that he very nearly believes it.

-

He’s up more than an hour before Louis the next morning, despite his less than restful night. He’s trying to figure out if there’s a way to heat his plastic bottle of water over the tiny fire he’s managed to build up again without melting it, because he could really do with a cup of tea and he thinks there’s bound to be at least one stray teabag in his suitcase somewhere. But he can’t think of how, so when Louis shuffles out of the tent, he’s just sort of kneeling by the fire pit, gazing out over the water.

“Morning,” Louis says, voice soft and scratchy. “Christ, it’s chilly.” He tugs the sleeves of the jumper he’s put on down over his hands and does a little hop, eventually making his way over to where Harry is.

“‘S’alright,” Harry says. It’s not _that_ cold, anyway -- he can already tell the sun will be warm today, once it gets high enough to break through the clouds. For now, though, it’s just slanting in sideways over the mist hanging on top of the lake, and it’s really quite peaceful.

Harry stands up, brushing his palms off on the side of the jeans he’d slept in, and tries his best not to look like someone who’s had a furtive pre-dawn wank behind a tree.

“What are you cooking me for brekkie?” Louis asks, slumping down on the log. On the lake, an enormous stork-like bird lifts off from the water, sending the surface off in concentric rings with a splash.

“Well,” says Harry. There’s not really much food left from their service station remnants supper the night before. This is perhaps not one of his better thought out plans -- he’d sort of forgotten there aren’t shops in the middle of the mountains. Or room service. “I can offer you whatever crisps we’ve still got in the car?”

Louis nods, like that’s a reasonable offer instead of a bad joke, and then yawns. “Elegant. I like it.”

Eventually, he manages to get Louis to help him tear down the tent -- apparently he’s more willing to dismantle something than he is to assemble it. Just as they’re trying futilely to shove the tent poles into the nylon bag they’d come in, Louis looks up at him with a smile and says “You’re buying me the greasiest fry up we can find as soon as we come across a diner, though.”

-

Harry does, at someplace called the Silver Spoon just off the interstate, and Louis grimaces his way through three cups of coffee when the waitress makes a face at his request for tea. He doesn’t seem to have a problem with his eggs, though, and by the time they’re headed into Kansas, Harry thinks he’s mostly forgiven for the poorly planned breakfast.

-

Louis sleeps for a while in the late afternoon as the mountains flatten out into something flatter but no less endless outside the windows. When he wakes, he blinks, apparently confused at how the wide-open spaces have been swapped for the outskirts of Oklahoma City.

“We can stop whenever you want,” Harry says. Outside of the car there are hotels and restaurants and all sorts of things flying by, chains he recognizes, places they could’ve slept and ate in in a hundred different cities by now, even if they haven’t, actually.

He’s tired, and he doesn’t really fancy another night in the tent. They could just stop at any of the hotels easily enough, but it seems -- it seems like a waste, he thinks, to hole up in another Hilton that’ll be just the same as all the other ones, all the ones that he hadn’t known how to be around Lou properly in either. But Louis is yawning, and Harry can tell he’s doing the thing where he refuses to admit to being tired even though it won’t cost him anything to do it, just being stubborn on principle. From the beginning, if Harry’d ever been the one to have to wake Louis, he’d deny having been asleep in the first place, even if Harry had just seen the slow rise of his chest, the slackness of his jaw he only gets in sleep.

The memory of it hits Harry like a wall -- Louis, eighteen, curled into the sofa in the X-Factor house, snoring a bit in sleep. Harry had watched him for a while, trying to sort out why he wanted to watch this strange boy sleep, and why it didn’t seem strange for him to want that in the first place. After a bit, he’d reached over and prodded at the arches of Louis’ feet until he’d woken, the wool of his socks scratchy on Harry’s hands.

“You gonna go to bed?” he’d asked Louis.

Louis had smiled and pried his eyes opens just an inch. “Why would I do that?” he’d asked, lazy and happy.

“You were asleep,” Harry’d told him.

“Wasn’t,” Louis said, shaking his head and letting his eyes close again even as he had said it.

Now, Louis is yawning into his shoulder, pressed up against the window of a car in the middle of Kansas, and the memory seems so close and so far away all at once that Harry has to swallow hard.

“Not tired,” Louis says, his voice gravelly with sleep. “Don’t wanna stop just yet.” Harry smiles at that. It feels like a small, familiar victory, and he holds it carefully inside his chest.

“We’ll have to soon,” he says, turning left onto a main road that cuts away from the city.

“Not here,” says Louis, more firmly this time. “It’s just…” He says it with his eyes focused intently past the windshield, squinting a bit into the refracted light from stoplights and buildings, and doesn’t finish the thought for a long time. “Somewhere quieter,” he finally says, pushing his sunglasses down from the top of his head and into place on the delicate arch of his nose. “Less people.” They’re stopped at a stoplight now, and Harry can see that it’s not exactly New York City, or Los Angeles, but it’s still a _city_ , there are still people bustling around on the sidewalks in smart work clothes and ripped hoodies and all sorts of variants in between, hailing cabs, clacking their heels on the pavement as they move around each other as they go about their lives like it’s a choreographed dance.

It suddenly feels claustrophobic. They keep driving.

-

The city spreads out around them, eventually, and the grip of feeling too closed in begins to loosen in Harry’s chest. He keeps his foot steady on the accelerator, happy to leave it behind.

Louis starts yawning, again, and the sun has set when Harry turns off the interstate onto a quiet state highway. Louis yawns again, nearly unhinging his jaw, and raises an eyebrow at Harry curiously.

“Saw a sign for a bed and breakfast,” he explains. There are trees lining the edge of the road, tight against the shoulder and bending over like they’re making a tunnel. He tries to keep his eyes alert, looking for a sign or a turn-off

“Reckon they’ll have vacancies?” Louis asks. He shifts around, tucking his feet up on the seat and resting his chin on his knees.

Harry shrugs. “Worth a try.” He hasn’t any idea, really, but now that the idea’s in his mind -- somewhere quiet and secluded where they can hole up, alone together -- he can’t imagine anything else. The alternative -- the faceless emptiness of another generic hotel, two rooms separated by a wall or a corridor or a whole floor -- sets his teeth on edge, something metallic and grating sparking in his stomach.

If the bed and breakfast is full, he doesn’t know what they’ll do. Keep driving, maybe. Pull the car over on the shoulder and sleep in it. They’ve still got the tent, anyway. Harry decides that he doesn’t particularly care where he sleeps, so long as it’s somewhere he doesn’t have to shut another door between himself and Louis.

The highway is mostly empty, an occasional set of yellow headlamps sweeping past them in the opposite direction, and then disappearing. Harry wonders if Louis will fall properly asleep before they get there, because he’s still squirming and yawning, resting his cheek on his knees, but when Harry finally finds the turn-off and carefully aims the car down the dirt drive, bumping up to a sweet farmhouse lit up from inside in soft shades of orange, Louis’ eyes are open, peering at him intently.

He stays in the running car while Harry goes inside carefully. He puts on a hat and his sunglasses before he does, and he feels like a twat, because it’s nighttime and they’re in the middle of nowhere, but it’s habit, now. And much as he hates it, he does feel -- not vulnerable, but _aware_ of just how alone he and Louis are. There’s no Paul or Preston, not even the other lads to divert unwanted attention if they need to. It’s thrilling and a bit overwhelming at the same time, even after nearly three days to get used to it.

If the older man with a scraggly white beard at the front desk has any idea who he is, though, he doesn’t say, and happily slides a key on an ornate ring over as soon as Harry’s card swipes through.

Louis is just where Harry left him, and rolls the window down when he sidles up to the passenger side.

“Any luck?” he asks.

“Just the one room left,” Harry mumbles, biting his lip.

If Louis can tell he’s lying, he doesn’t say anything either.

-

There’s a late dinner spread out in the dining room, apparently, at least according to the man at the desk, but Harry just nods a thank you and hurries them up to their room. He selfishly wants to have Louis all to himself, and anyway, there’s no point in sitting around in the dining room with a small crowd of strangers, waiting to be recognized.

The room is cozy, done up in purple florals with a big brass bed taking up most of the space. In the toilet, there’s a clawfoot tub, and the window looks out over a cornfield, all blue and black in the dark. Most importantly, the door locks solidly behind them.

Louis showers while Harry orders a pizza from the landline, giving another fake name, again for no particular reason other than he can and he feels like it. Louis is still steaming up the toilet when it arrives, and Harry has to scamper past the man at the front desk to pay for it at the front door, feeling unreasonably exposed the entire time he’s out of their room.

Louis is out of the shower and dressed by the time Harry gets back, sitting cross-legged on the bed in his trackies with the old television on, a black and white film flickering quietly on the screen.

“Ooh, give it here,” he says when he notices the pizza, making grabby hands at it. “I’m starving.”

“Who says this is for you?” Harry asks, knocking the door shut solidly.

“Everything is for me,” Louis says with a grin, shifting around to make room for Harry and the food.

They’re quiet as they eat, Harry half-heartedly watching the movie that’s on the television even though it’s too low to hear what’s happening. It’s companionable, even if he can’t stop himself from being hyperaware of Louis next to him -- the way he shifts and moves, incapable of sitting still even when he’s exhausted.

“Are you really going to eat that?” Louis says, soundly vaguely impressed as he tilts his head at Harry’s fifth slice of pizza.

“‘Course,” Harry smirks, dangling a glob of cheese into his mouth obscenely. “I’m a growing boy.”

“Is that why your hair’s doing that thing, then? Because it’s growing too?” Louis asks.

“Hey,” Harry pouts. “I have a look going.”

Louis snorts, but agrees. “Yeah, all right. A look.” He pauses like he’s considering, and then takes another slice of pizza.

“Full?” Harry asks once Louis has finally stopped eating, slumped over on the bed. Louis responds with a groan, waving a hand weakly at the last slice sitting alone in the box.

“Full,” he confirms, brushing his hair out of his face. It’s getting longer, too; Harry likes it.

“Good,” he says. He still feels a bit guilty for the half-arsed dinner and breakfast they’d had while camping, but at least he’s made up for it now, a bit.

Louis smiles, and closes his eyes for a while, lapsing back into silence. Eventually, he gets up and goes into the toilet again, a familiar battery of sounds following as he brushes his teeth. Harry scoots around to the foot of the bed, waiting for Louis to finish. It’s hit him, suddenly, how small the room is. It’s not _bad_ \-- that’s what he wanted, even -- but he realizes there’s not really anywhere to escape to, not if the proximity to Louis takes over and settles in his body like it had the night before. Not with Louis sleeping next to him on a bed that isn’t quite as big as it’d seemed when they’d arrived.

The silence seems heavier, all of a sudden. Harry wonders if it’d be too conspicuous to turn up the television, but before he can decide the water shuts off and Louis emerges, looking oddly serious.

“Listen,” he starts carefully. Harry’s stomach swoops; he regrets eating so much, for a moment, because he can guess what that seriousness means -- this will probably be the bit where things go pear-shaped, and Louis will decide it’s too much, the two of them like this, locked up in a room together, and that it would be better to just call it quits, now, write it off as a failed experiment.

Maybe it would be, honestly, if the way Harry’s stomach is clenching is anything to go on. He hopes he doesn’t sick up pizza everywhere when Louis lets him down gently, at least.

“Can I--” Louis starts, but then he cuts himself off with a frown, shaking his head. “Just -- I can’t figure out why? Why you wanted to do this, I mean,” he asks, crossing over to sit down carefully next to Harry at the foot of the bed and tucking his knees up. “This whole trip, like. With just me and not any of the other lads.”

“I missed you,” Harry says simply, without thinking about it, and as soon as he does, he sort of wishes he could pull the words back in, because it’s -- it’s too much of an admission. Not the fact that he’s missed Louis, necessarily, but that there’s been something there to miss. That something had gone wrong enough to leave a space behind.

“I’m _right here_ ,” Louis say defensively, folding his arms across the top of his knees so that he can rest his chin on them, frowning a bit. “I’m always right here.”

“You are,” Harry says slowly, looking down at his hands folded in his lap, twisting his ring around his middle finger unconsciously, “but also sort of not.”

“I am, though,” Louis says, quieter. Harry can’t decide if it feels like there’s a mile between them on the bed or hardly an inch, and he suddenly feels suffocated by it, smothered in the palpable silence of the room, the small chasm of distance between them. There’s a clock on the bedside table that ticks ominously, the only sound.

“It doesn’t feel like it,” he says after a long pause, and then he stands from the bed, because the distance between them seems to have shrunk even more. Louis is so _close_ to him on the bed, the space between them too near, and Harry’s not sure how to stay in it. So he stands and turns back to face Louis from a safer distance, about to say something about how really _does_ miss him, almost always, and how crap it is that he doesn’t know how to stop, but then Louis reaches up, grabs Harry by the elbows, and yanks him in close, forcing Harry to stoop over clumsily until their eyes are level.

“I’m right _here_ ,” he repeats directly into Harry’s face, just inches away, and then kisses him.

For a moment, just a moment, Harry thinks he’s forgotten how to breathe.

The thing is -- the thing is, this is new. Louis’ kissed him a hundred times, probably, fast and flitting things on the cheek and in the hair and on the hand when he’s being loud and funny. But not for a long time, not for longer than Harry wants to think about, and never like this. Louis has only ever kissed Harry like he’s kissed the rest of the lads, and this is -- this is distinctly different. This is Louis’ lips against his, not going anywhere as he parts them against Harry’s. Louis keeps him leveraged in close for a long moment, and mouth is soft and sure, not giving Harry an inch to get away.

It’s new, kissing Lou like this, all close and tangled together, but for an instant, Harry forgets that it is. Because he’s had to think about it so many times, maybe, regardless of if he wanted to or not, constantly reminded of how so many people thought he already had this bit of Louis, which meant he never could, not ever. Or maybe it’s because he thought it’d never actually happen, relegated it to some parallel universe where the two of them hadn’t splintered so far apart. He’d thought about it all the time when he was sixteen, thought about kissing Lou almost constantly, it’d seemed like, and for a while he thought that someday he might get to, until one day he’d woken up and realized he was waiting for something that was never coming. Not in the real world, not outside of the twisted-up center of him that can barely sort out what it wants, let alone how to have it.

And maybe he was right, because this, now, kissing Louis in the silence of a strange bedroom doesn’t feel anything like the real world. It feels like everything beyond the walls of the room and the two of them in it has fallen away, and there’s nothing in the back of his head to tell him he shouldn’t, or that he should, or what will happen either way. It’s just happening, and maybe that’s enough. Maybe he can stay here like this forever, outside of time, Louis’ lips careful and firm on his.

“Oh,” Harry says when Louis’s grip finally loosens on his arms and lets him pull back an inch. He straightens up, and then has to sit back down on the foot of the bed again, back in the spot next to Louis, because his brain has gone soft, and he doesn’t think he can trust his legs enough to keep him standing.

“Yeah,” Louis agrees quietly.

Harry realizes that his hand has gone up to his mouth, prodding delicately at his own lips like he’s trying to determine if they’re still there. It feels like something a twelve year old girl would do, so he forces himself to pull his hand away, feeling dazed.

“I’m not sorry,” Louis says after a moment, his voice straining for confidence in that way it does when he’s not feeling anything close to it. It breaks something down in Harry’s chest.

“Don’t be,” he says, low in the back of his throat. Louis’ hand is so close to his, and it only takes the smallest shift so that their pinkies are pressed up against one another.

“I’m gonna do it again,” Louis says, quiet this time, serious.

Harry shuts his eyes. “Do it,” he says hoarsely.

So Louis does.

He kisses Harry until they tumble backwards on the bed, slowly, his hands on Harry’s waist like he’s not sure if it’s allowed, and his tongue in Harry’s mouth with a bit more confidence. They kiss for ages, because Harry doesn’t know how to do anything else, doesn’t know how to stop, and he only does when he realizes he’s laughing into Louis’ mouth.

“What?” Louis asks, pulling back an inch to look at Harry with a confused little smile. They’re on their sides next to each other, on top of the duvet, Louis in his sleep clothes and looking soft and sweet and fuck, now Harry knows how he tastes when he kisses.

“This is just--” Harry starts, and then laughs again before he can help it. “It’s our first kiss,” he says, yanking Louis into a crushing sort of hug. It’s absurd.

“Oh my God,” Louis says into his neck, sounding pleased and exasperated at the same time, the way he used to when Harry was sixteen and would smile too big at him or say something too earnest that probably ought to have been embarrassing, if he’d have been capable of feeling any shame when it came to Louis.

“I know,” Harry says, not caring how it sounds, just this side of lovesick. His mum’s always said he doesn’t have the good sense to know when to be self-conscious. Right now, though, he’s pleased for it, because it lets him snuggle in tighter to Louis without any hesitation. He wants to stay here. He wants to sleep like this, so he lets Louis go just for an instant, just long enough to squirm out of his tight jeans and then pull the duvet around them, curled up beneath it in the same position, Harry’s head tucked against Louis’ chin.

“All right?” he asks Louis. He thinks he might kiss him again, but for once he doesn’t feel like he needs more more more of Louis. He’s got him; this is where he wants to be, the two of them. He wants to sleep, and for Louis to stay just where he is, warm and flush up against him.

“Yeah,” Louis says, cautiously but not unhappily. “All right.”

Harry doesn’t think he’s just being polite – it _does_ feel all right, unexpectedly and wonderfully. He waits to see if regret swoops in – the thought that they’ve gone and fucked it up, now, made things weird and worse than ever – but it doesn’t. He only feels cozy and pleased and just where he’d like to be.

“Okay, then,” he says, and reaches over to flick off the lamp.

Louis doesn’t move away, and Harry feels it when he drifts off curled up against him, breathing softly against Harry’s collarbone, only kicking out in his sleep a bit.

-

In the morning, the first thing Harry sees is Louis is watching him, still tucked underneath his arm.

“Hi,” he says when he notices Harry’s eye cracked open.

“H’lo,” Harry says. He still feels cozy and overwarm, and he tries not to hold his breath while he waits to see how the next moment is going to go, because it feels precipitous, like everything hangs in the balance of what Louis does next – if he’ll lean in to kiss him again, or extract himself from Harry’s arms while carefully avoiding his eyes.

“You still snore,” Louis says instead of either of those things. He doesn’t go anywhere, though.

“Don’t,” Harry protests, shaking his head. He’s never admitted to it before, and he’s not about to stop now.

Louis does lean in and kiss him, then, just once, quick on the mouth, but it somehow feels even more monumental than the ones from the night before.

“It’s not gonna be weird,” Louis announces quietly, just an inch from Harry’s mouth.

“Okay?” Harry agrees.

“I don’t want it to be weird,” Louis clarifies. “And we have to be in New York in four days, and I don’t want to waste it being weird, so we’re just… not gonna be, okay?”

“Okay,” Harry says again, nodding this time.

He believes it.

-

It does feel okay as they pull away from the bed and breakfast, lighter and easier than any morning they’ve had so far, and Harry feels strangely buoyant as they get settled in the car.

As soon as they set off down the road, though, Harry immediately wants to get out again. He hasn’t minded the driving at all so far, and has mostly found the long quiet stretches peaceful and unexpectedly soothing. There’s something satisfying about being the one behind the wheel, watching the odometer spin endlessly on, a tangible marker of forward progress.

Right now, though, he just wants to park at the nearest spot he can find, because Louis is there, he’s _right there_ , but Harry can’t kiss him again and drive the car at the same time, which is more devastating than he wants to admit.

It’s just -- if this is the only shot he’s got at it, he’d rather not spend it watching Kansas roll by outside the windshield.

“Y’alright?” Louis asks after a bit. “You’re twitchy.”

Harry realizes he’s been drumming his thumbs restlessly on the steering wheel and forces himself to stop. “Antsy,” he explains, trying to focus on the road. There’s a tractor in a field to their left. It does little to hold his attention.

“I’d offer to drive, but,” Louis says, shrugging. He doesn’t like to drive in America. He barely likes to drive back home, really.

“I want to kiss you,” Harry says, without really meaning to. It surprises him, a bit, coming out like that. He stares steadily forward at the road as Louis shifts around beside him, tucking his legs up underneath him.

“You could,” Louis says slowly.

Harry breathes out a laugh at that. “Not if you don’t want me to crash the car.”

“You could pull over,” Louis says, a bit more surely this time.

Harry’s tempted, so incredibly tempted, to pull the car onto the emergency shoulder of the highway and climb over the middle console so he can press Louis into his seat and kiss him until they’re both breathless, because Louis can’t just _say_ things like that, Jesus. But Harry just whines in the back of his throat and keeps his foot steady on the accelerator. “Should keep going,” he says unhappily. “Paul’ll murder us if we get behind and miss our flights.” He thinks they’re making good enough time, but he’s also not really basing that on much of anything except a vague feeling.

Louis makes a nondescript noise, and then reaches over to fish Harry’s phone out of the chest pocket of his plaid shirt. The heat of Louis’ fingertip almost burns, even through the worn fabric, and Harry wonders if it’s always been like that and he’s just now noticing, how he sparks when Louis touches him.

“You’ve got your own, y’know,” he says through a smile. He’s a rubbish actor, though, so it’s useless to pretend it doesn’t make him light up at the familiar way Louis helps himself to Harry’s things without a second thought, like there’s no delineation between ‘yours’ and ‘mine.’ It’s been a long time since they’ve overlapped enough for that, and Harry knows he shouldn’t be so thrilled about the sight of Louis thumbing through his mobile like he’s got a right to it, but he can’t help but indulge himself in it all the same. Louis still knows his passcode, he realizes -- still Lux’s birthday -- and at the moment, that feels like something enormous, something bigger as part of a whole than it is on its own.

Louis just shrugs, tapping away at the phone. The quiet that follows should worry Harry, because Louis is only quiet like that when he’s planning something, but when he glances over and sees the secret smile curving the edges of Louis’ mouth upwards, he can’t find it in himself to be bothered.

When Louis nods at a split in the highway an hour later and says “Turn right,” Harry raises an eyebrow, and does as he says.

-

When they stop at an isolated service station an hour later, Louis still has Harry’s phone, and when he disappears inside as Harry fills the tank, he’s dialing, pressing it up against his ear and shooting a furtive look at Harry before the glass door swings shut behind him with a dull chime.

“Found us a cabin to stay in for the night,” he says when he returns, sauntering across the hot asphalt and flopping into the car. He’s got a bag of snacks with him, and a rapidly melting slushie that’s turning his mouth cherry red. “Just spoke with the woman who owns it and it was available, so ‘s’all set.”

The car starts, and the air conditioner coughs out a blast at Harry that makes his skin prickle, the stripe of sweat beading on his forehead from just being outside for a moment going tacky in the cool recirculated air.

“‘S’it far?” Harry asks as he puts the car into drive. Louis’ still holding Harry’s phone hostage, clutched tightly in the hand that’s not popping crisps into his mouth as he glances at what Harry thinks must be a map. He thinks if he asked for it back, Louis would just smile and refuse, and the thought is strangely comforting.

“Only another hour, I think,” Louis says.

Harry makes a sound of surprise. They’ve scarcely been driving for two hours, now, and he’d just assumed they’d go eight, maybe nine like the last two days. Louis seems to understand, though, and says “We can make it up driving tomorrow, if you’re worried about it.” He shifts in his seat, and then squints a bit out at the road. “Besides,” he continues. “Want to kiss you again, and I can’t very well do it here.”

Harry can’t help the way it makes his heart beat, doesn’t think he’d want to even if he could. And when he glances over at Louis to see the firm set of his jaw, refusing to take it back, refusing to seem anything less than sure of himself, it’s all he can do to keep the car straight, his foot pressing heavier on the accelerator. He feels more inclined than ever to get to wherever it is they’re going as quickly as he possibly can.

-

Harry doesn’t know what he’s expecting when he brings the car around the bend -- is he expecting anything at all? Maybe that’d be foolish, at this point -- but the cabin in front of them certainly isn’t it.

The _cabin_ is barely that -- it’s made of dark, thick logs and heavy slate stones, yes, but the scale is too big, too large to reasonably be called a log cabin by far.

The drive that Louis had navigated them down to get to it was winding and barely wide enough for the width of their car, tucked off a curve in the road almost invisibly and tunneled in on both sides by towering pines. When Harry parks the car on the gravel drive, it takes him a moment of gazing up at the trees in something like awe before he can get out.

“Jesus, Lou,” he says appreciatively as they step out of the car together. “Nice.” He means the house, but also more than that. With the engine shut off, there’s no sound at all beyond the small clearing the cabin’s set in -- birds, and the sound of a river further off, and then blessedly silent space, massive and exhilarating.

Louis just shrugs, grinning in a quietly satisfied sort of way, and busies himself finding a hidden key beneath a fake rock while Harry attempts to lug their bags through the massive front door.

Inside, it’s all glass and wood, thick logs and beams and wide windows looking out over the trees that close in tight against the sides of the house, circling it almost protectively. The kitchen is gleaming chrome, and there’s an enormous glass door that leads out to the grassy back garden, and beyond that, a bluff over a secluded stretch of river, the one Harry must’ve heard outside.

Nearer to him, there’s a fireplace in the enormous sitting room that rises two stories tall, made entirely of rocks broader across than Harry’s shoulders, and an actual bearskin rug spread out in front of it. Harry thinks it’s a bear, at least. It hasn’t got a head attached, but it’s furry and enormous.

He ambles over to it, toeing at the edge of the rug before letting his bag drop on it with a thunk. “Wow,” he says.

Louis sidles up to him, hands jammed in his pockets self-consciously as he looks around the room as well.

“You wanted something secluded, right?” he asks. For a second he sounds unsure, like maybe he’s got it wrong, and it makes Harry want to physically wrap himself around Louis’ body and tell him _it’s good, it’s so good_.

Harry nods slowly. He did want something secluded, and the cabin is bang on to what he had in his head, even if he hadn’t realized it yet. It’s _perfect_ , actually, and he doesn’t know why he ever suspected anything less from Louis, once he’s set his mind to something, but it still makes Harry’s chest feel a bit too big and too small all at once.

“I love it,” he says.

“Well,” says Louis, struggling not to look pleased.

Harry is hit with how badly he wants to kiss him, then. It’s as if doing it once -- and more than that, the permission to do it again -- has lit something up inside him, a want he hadn’t known he’d been keeping quiet, demanding to be fed now that its awake. “Hey,” he says, reaching over to circle his fingers around Louis’ wrists and pull him closer, just an inch away. He pauses, waiting to see if Louis steps back, but he doesn’t, just tilts his chin up and looks at Harry steadily.

“Okay?” Harry asks, gently fitting a curled finger under Louis’ chin, tipping his head up a bit more.

Louis just looks at him, and then Harry ducks down and kisses him, lightly, just the once.

Louis sighs into it, one hand tentatively coming to rest on Harry’s hip, grazing the bare skin where his shorts have ridden down on his hips.

Harry could stay there all day just kissing Louis, lips barely parted, breathing in the smell of him, but he reminds himself this is new, even if it doesn’t feel like it. New and still unsteady and he doesn’t want to fuck it up, so he steps back after a moment, determined to give Louis space if he wants it.

“C’mon, help me explore,” he says, smiling. When he turns for the stairs, he hears Louis following behind him.

There’s a massive bedroom up at the top of the house, open to the sitting room with just a log railing separating it. Harry tosses his bag on it with a quiet thump, while Louis sets about opening and closing all the drawers in the rough-hewn wooden wardrobe and the vanity in the toilet.

Eventually, they find another two bedrooms, a sauna on the lower level, a pool table, and one enormous spider in the downstairs toilet, which Louis immediately shuts the door to with a delicate shudder. By the end of the tour, they wind up in the enormous sitting room again, gazing out the glass door that leads to the back garden and the broad wooden deck.

“View’s wicked,” Harry says, pulling the door handle. It slides open quietly, and he steps out into the patchy sunshine warming the wood. It smells like pine and warmth and it fills Harry up like a balloon, how peaceful it is here. Especially with Louis, wandering up beside him to lean on the rail, bumping their shoulders together in a way that’s not accidental.

“I want to swim,” Louis says decisively, raising a hand to shield his eyes as he looks out over the water. “‘S’bloody hot out.” The river here spreads out wide, into a proper lake, nearly. Their shoreline is secluded, though, a private inlet set up on a bluff, and as far as Harry can see, there’s nothing else along its banks for ages -- no other homes, no people or boats, just water and hills and trees, and the sky above it all.

“Haven’t got a swimsuit,” he says apologetically. His little yellow trunks are stowed away in some piece of luggage that Paul’s in charge of making sure makes it back to Harry’s flat in London, just in time for him to take everything out of it and repack it again when he gets back.

Louis raises an eyebrow at him, challenging and sly. “So?” he asks. And then in a flash he’s gone, shooting down the stairs of the deck, leaving a trail of his clothes strewn behind him as he peels them off as he crashes towards the river.

Harry pauses for a minute, and then smiles as he starts to pull off his own shirt and shorts as well, nudging them into a pile with Louis’ clothes on the grass. By the time he catches up with Louis on the edge of the bluff, they’re both down to their pants, stopped where the earth drops off towards the water beneath them. It’s hardly very far -- a few meters at most -- and there’s a gentler slope just to their right that they could easily walk down to reach the water. And Louis is absolutely going to ignore that in favor of jumping straight in, there’s no doubt in Harry’s mind.

“Y’ready?” Louis asks. His hand shoots out lightning quick, grasping Harry’s so tightly he thinks he feels something pop, and then lets go.

“Ready,” Harry agrees, nodding, even though he hasn’t any idea if he actually is or not.

It doesn’t matter, though, because Louis is jumping, then, leaping away from the bank and hurtling towards the water, and Harry’s following before he can even think about it.

When he crashes up through the surface again, spluttering water because it’s fucking _cold_ , even in the sharp heat of the sun, Louis is already there, shaking his hair out of his face and laughing with a choked-off gasp.

“Oh my God,” Harry splutters. “You prat, it’s _cold_.” He doesn’t know why it hadn’t occurred to him as he’d followed Louis off the edge of a miniature cliff, but he hadn’t even stopped to think about the temperature of the water.

Louis just laughs at him, though, looking golden and entirely in his element as he flops backward into the water, sinking beneath the surface again with an enormous splash.

Harry dunks his own head under again, and it’s less icy this time, but he still finds himself jumping up and down in place a moment later, trying to coax his blood into moving again. If Louis is bothered, though, he doesn’t let on, just swims lazy circles around Harry, occasionally sending a barrage of water spraying up in his face with the flick of a wrist.

Harry scowls at him the third time Louis manages to get water up his nose, but can’t help grinning like an idiot at him anyway, trying to swim away so Louis can’t see the dopey expression on his face. Only when he tries to stand at a safer, splash-free distance, his feet go out from under him in the soft sand, and he topples over, the water rushing into his nose yet again.

When he surfaces, Louis is snorting in laughter, but he’s also nearer, with a purposeful glint in his eyes.

“C’mere, idiot,” Louis says, grabbing Harry by the wrist and yanking him close. His feet slip on the sand again, but Louis catches him, hauling him in close so their chests touch. “Are you sure you can even swim?”

“I can,” Harry confirms, grinning so wide he thinks his face might split with it despite the mouthful of river he thinks he’s just swallowed. Louis is _here_ , really here, and he’s touching Harry’s wrist easily, draping an arm around his waist under the water, and Harry could lean in and kiss him if he wanted to. He _could_. Louis would let him. The knowledge of it makes him feel fizzy and shook up, and because he can, he does.

“Hi,” Louis mumbles against his lips, tightening his grip around Harry. He glances around, briefly, like he expects to see someone lurking in the trees, but there’s no one, and in an instant he shakes it off, focusing on Harry again with an intensity that makes him want to laugh and buckle at the knees all at once. Louis is looking at him, really _looking_ , and Harry hadn’t realized how long it’s been since he’s done that.

“Hi,” he repeats, bringing his hands up to Louis’ face and grasping him there, thumbs pressing into his cheekbones. He leans in and kisses him, softly, before pulling back. “This water really is freezing,” he says, barely above a whisper. It is, although if he’s honest, he scarcely feels it at the moment. Louis just laughs at him.

“Is this the part where you ask me to warm you up?” he asks. Their chests are pressed together, and Louis’ toes are wiggling against Harry’s in the sand, and Harry can’t help but smile against the soft press of Louis’ lips when he brings them together. He hadn’t any idea it could be like this -- so easy.

“My chat up lines are much better than that,” he says. He can’t quite manage to smile and kiss Louis at the same time, but he tries anyway, because he doesn’t want to stop doing either one.

“They’re really not,” Louis says, leaning back to grin before kissing him again. His mouth opens, this time, and suddenly there’s the press of his tongue, making Harry groan before he can help it. Louis tastes like he thought he would -- sweet and sharp and warm. His hips shift without his permission, knocking close to Louis’, the wet fabric of his pants and the firm press of his thigh trapped between Harry’s, and suddenly he feels less like laughing, just a bit.

“Worked on you,” he manages to mumble, even if it’s a lie. Louis just hums against his mouth, and then one of his hands trails up Harry’s back until it’s tangled in his hair, yanking lightly.

“Don’t be thick,” Louis says lightly, backing away from Harry’s body. Harry whines at all the sudden space, but Louis just twists his fingers with Harry’s, tugging gently. They slog through the water together as Louis leads them towards the bank of the river and then out of the water, picking carefully up the bluff and across the grassy lawn.

It strikes Harry, as he walks carefully hand in hand with Louis, just how surreal this is. He’s hard, for one, and soaking wet and in his pants, and Louis is leading him inside, and there’s no one around for miles to see any of it all. Of all the things that have happened to him, this might be one of the hardest to believe.

He follows Louis dutifully, and when they’re nearly to the cabin, Louis turns back, smiling almost nervously over his shoulder. “Doesn’t matter about your shit chat up lines, anyway,” he says as he slips through the open door. “I was a sure thing.”

It goes through Harry like an electrical shock.

Because he _wasn’t_ , that’s the thing. There were a thousand ways they could’ve gone, the two of them, with any one of those paths inevitably angling them further and further apart. It was never a guarantee that he’d be here, like this, fingers tangled with Louis’, allowed to kiss him, allowed to touch him. Because that’s what they’re going to do, now, he’s sure of it. He’s going to take Louis inside and touch him, however Lou will let him, and it could’ve gone a thousand other ways but it _hasn’t_. They’re here, now, and just that fact is so unlikely that he’d scarcely ever allowed himself to think of it as possible.

The realization sends him forward with a jolt, because more than anything now he wants to be closer to Louis, pressed as close at they can get, pressed inside him, so that no space can crawl between them again.

Louis shuts the sliding door to the cabin behind them once they’re both through, and turns to look up at Harry almost shyly. The inside of the house is starting to fill up with long shadows and gray corners, and Harry can barely think of it at all beyond trying to find a surface he can press Louis against.

The door itself works well enough, as it turns out, and Louis lets out a little _oomph_ when Harry shoves him gently against it, pressing their hips together with more confidence than he feels.

“Lou,” he mumbles into his mouth, kissing him more frantically than he means to. There’s a squeak as Louis’ wet skin presses against the glass, but Harry barely notices, not with Louis kissing him back just as fiercely, his tongue working into Harry’s mouth in a way that makes him feel a bit dizzy.

“God,” Louis manages to get out, digging the sharp crescents of his nails into the meat of Harry’s hips. “You -- Christ, Haz, do you even know what you’re _like_?”

Harry feels himself flush warm in his cheeks at that, and the way Louis sounds like he’s starting to unravel, something he takes care not to let anyone see if he can help it. Their bodies are flush, damp and too hot and too cold all at once, and Harry admires the way Louis can get words out at all, because he can feel Louis’ dick against his hip, and that’s enough to send all coherent language out of his head.

“Don’t understand the question,” he finally mumbles in between kissing Louis and trying to keep from rubbing off against his leg like a dog. It’s hard, though, to keep his wits about him when he’s got his hands on Louis’ warm skin, grazing over the flat line of his stomach and the spot where the waistband of his pants bites into his hips.

Louis whines, shutting his eyes fiercely and biting at Harry’s lower lip; it zings straight to his cock, the sharp point of Louis’ incisors on his mouth.

“You’re -- you’re full of shit,” Louis says half-heartedly, not sounding at all put out about it. Harry tilts his head to the side and focuses on dragging his lips up the column of Louis’ neck, curious to hear what he has to say. “You _know_ how fit you are, you know how -- how much everyone wants you,” Louis continues. He punctuates that bit with a fierce roll of his hips, and their cocks aren’t quite touching but it’s so close Harry thinks even that might be enough to do him in.

“But -- none of them really know you, yeah?” Louis continues, a bit broken up between gasps as Harry bites below his ear and fits a thumb against his hips. “None of the millions of fans begging you to shag them, yeah? You’re just -- a fantasy, like.”

Harry just murmurs wordlessly against the hot jump of Louis’ pulse. He’s not really sure what Louis’ getting at, but he’s too distracted trying to taste as much of Louis’ skin as he possibly can to think about it much.

“But I know you,” Louis continues, one hand reaching up to grasp wildly at Harry’s damp hair and pull lightly. “And _Jesus_ , it just makes it worse.”

Harry hears that, and pulls away, furrowing his eyebrows just a bit as he gazes at Louis.

“Dunno what that means,” he says, digging the crescent of his thumbnail into Louis’ skin.

Louis eyes are bright and a bit desperate, and he doesn’t look away from Harry. “Knowing you,” he explains. “Seeing you every day, and knowing how you are. Not like, Harry Styles off the television or whatever, or the bits that everyone else has, but just _you_.” He reaches up slowly, pressing one hand tentatively over Harry’s chest, over his heart.

“And how I could never bloody have you, no matter how badly I wanted to,” he finishes, his voice barely more than a rough whisper as he drops his gaze to where his palm is pressed over Harry’s skin.

Something seems to wrench in the pit of Harry’s stomach, then, and he groans as he pulls Louis away from the door, shepherding him a bit frantically to the stairs as quickly as he can manage without taking his hands off him.

“You could,” he says as they stumble into the bedroom. Their bags are still on the enormous bed, and he shoves them off carelessly before pulling Louis down with him, the sheets billowing up around them a bit. He leans over Louis, who looks inordinately small in the vast white bed, and fits his hand around his cheek, trying not to feel overcome enough to shake. “You always could,” he says before leaning down to kiss him.

It’s a lie, of course. It’s a wildly unfair oversimplification of something that was never anywhere _near_ simple, and there are a thousand ways it wouldn’t have worked, a thousand times they couldn’t have had each other like this. It’s just that those don’t feel so important, now, in this seemingly endless bed with Louis, kissing him like he’ll never have to stop for anything in the world.

“I want--” Harry starts, rearranging himself so he’s kneeling around Louis’ hips, curving his spine so he can kiss his sternum. “Jesus, I want--”

He’s not sure if he even knows how to finish that.

“What?” Louis asks, squirming a bit beneath him. “What d’you want?”

“Everything,” he admits.

“Okay,” Louis agrees quietly, tracing his hands up Harry’s arms softly. “Whatever you want, you can -- you can have it.”

Harry has to rest his head on Louis’ collarbones for a moment, breathing in shakily, but then he tries to focus, sitting back on his heels.

“This?” he asks, fitting his fingers in the waistband of Louis’ pants, tugging at them just an inch.

Louis swallows, and nods. Harry thinks his heart is near to jumping out of his chest when Louis arches up from the bed so Harry can pull them off the rest of the way, chucking them somewhere to his right.

The sight of it nearly knocks the wind out of him, Louis naked beneath him. He’s seen him naked before, obviously, but this is an entire world’s away -- Louis is naked for _him_ , is hard for _him_ , and that feels enormous.

Harry shoves his own pants off as quickly as he can manage, and then leans back in to kiss Louis, one hand on his cheek, the other gripping his bicep.

Beneath him, Louis bites his lip, and then grabs tightly at Harry’s hips, pulling him closer. Their cocks bump against each other and Harry can’t help it, he _jerks_ at it.

Louis whines, shifting beneath him as they rut against each other for a moment, but then he pulls back, a curious look on his face.

“Have you ever, like--” Louis bites off the end of the question, glancing down at his hands where they’re holding Harry’s hips hard enough to turn the skin white. “With another bloke before?”

Harry doesn’t let himself feel a pang of -- something, whatever it is, at the fact that Louis’ asking, that it’s a part of Harry he doesn’t know. He supposes he isn’t allowed to feel anything about it, since he wants to know the same thing from Louis. So instead he just nods his head hastily, and then, when he realizes Louis can’t properly see him because he’s still got his eyes fixed on his own hands, forces himself to find his voice and croak out a “yes.”

Louis looks up at him at that, something curious and desperate written on his face, and Harry can’t help but reach down and swipe a thumb across the thin skin beneath his eye, trying to wipe it away.

“‘S’that okay?” he asks dumbly. He doesn’t know precisely what he means by it -- not that he’d ever thought Louis might have a problem with him fucking blokes, especially not now, like this, but -- maybe the fact that Louis had to ask. Maybe that bit isn’t okay. For a horrible moment he can’t staunch the creeping sense that it isn’t; that maybe anything that’s happened beyond the two of them, beyond this house and the last few days, is too heavy to carry, will press in like a weight until it snaps the two of them apart again.

Louis, though, just pulls Harry’s hand towards his mouth and kisses his palm softly. “‘Course,” he says. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

Harry just shrugs, not sure how to explain it.

“Thought you knew, anyway,” he says, hoping that’s good enough by way of explanation.

Louis blinks slowly. “I mean. Guessed, but, like. You never _told_ me.”

Harry supposes that’s true. Lou’s never asked, and he’s never said.

“Have you?” Harry asks.

Louis takes a moment, and Harry can see his jaw set firmly, biting at the inside of his own cheek, but then he nods, once,

“Oh,” Harry says, feeling a bit stupefied. He hadn’t been expecting that, and he’s not sure why, really, now that he tries to name it, but it still feels surprising.

He suddenly wants to ask who, badly wants to know who’s touched Louis like this, what they did to him and how he liked it, and the weight of it inside his chest, how he holds it there -- but maybe that’s not his to know. Maybe it doesn’t matter.

Louis is right there, lying beneath Harry, putting his hands on him and waiting for Harry to touch _him_ , and that’s all that matters.

He doesn’t want to disappoint him, so he touches. He shuffles on his knees so he can kiss down Louis’ chest, the soft line of his belly, the jut of his hips.

“Tell me what you want,” he murmurs against the heat of Louis’ bare skin. He tastes like the river and the sun and _Louis_ , unquestionably Louis.

“Your mouth,” Louis says, throwing an arm over his face like he’s overwhelmed. Harry understands that, at least. He can barely manage to keep his hands steady. “Your hands,” Louis adds.

Harry can work with that. He slides his mouth slow and wet over Louis’ cock, eyes nearly rolling back as he realizes _this is what Louis tastes like_. God, it feels almost dangerous to know that, and he also can’t imagine how he’s just now finding it out.

“Fuck,” Louis whines, shifting his hips up, shoving himself in to the back of Harry’s throat. “Fuck, sorry--”

“‘S’okay,” Harry says as his pulls off for a moment. “I don’t mind, you can--you can do that. I like it.”

Louis’ arm shifts off his eyes, and the look he gives Harry feels like awe and want and a thousand other things. Harry takes a steadying breath before he puts his mouth on him again, and then stays still, waiting for Louis to start thrusting shallowly.

It’s better than he’d imagined, having Louis fuck into his mouth, even a bit tentatively. He can’t help it, and groans as he grinds his erection against the bed, trying to find any bit of relief from how achingly hard is he just from having Louis’ cock in his mouth.

His jaw starts to strain after a bit, but he doesn’t pull off until he feels Louis’ hand in his hair dragging him up.

“Stop,” Louis gasps, his fringe lying damp across his face, flushed and overwhelmed. “Gonna come.”

“That’s the point,” Harry says, leaning in to kiss him. It feels wrong not to have his mouth on some part of Louis when he just as easily could.

“No, but, like--” Louis bats weakly at Harry, trying to stop him sucking a love bite at the hinge of his jaw. “Want you to fuck me.”

That makes Harry go still. He squeezes his eyes shut for a moment, because even the words are threatening to overwhelm him. “Y’sure?” he asks, his mouth just against Louis’ ear.

“Yeah,” Louis says decisively. “If you don’t want to, I mean, but that’s… that’s what I want.”

“Christ, of course I want to,” Harry says. “Just -- wait right here, yeah?” He stumbles off the bed, trying to recall which direction he’d tossed his bag in. He gets a bit distracted, though, by Louis propped up on his elbows and watching him, naked and hard, and the staccato beat in his own chest, and most just winds up casting about uselessly, his own cock almost tauntingly hard against his stomach.

“Condom,” he explains a bit pathetically when Louis quirks an eyebrow at him. Maybe he just summon it if he says it out loud. Christ, where’s his _bag_?

He trips over it, eventually, strewn halfway under the bed, and it takes him too long to find lube and a condom underneath a grotty rolled-up t-shirt, but eventually he does, feeling disproportionately triumphant for it.

When he gets back to the bed he kneels between Louis’ legs again, only this time he pushes them up and back, a bit. He does it slowly, waiting to see if Louis will tense up or flinch away from him, but he doesn’t, just watches Harry almost studiously, eyebrows furrowed as he slicks up a finger and trails it along the crease of his arse.

“Oh,” Louis gasps when he presses lightly against his hole.

“D’you want me to stop?” Harry asks immediately, not sure if that’s a good oh or not. He realizes that Louis saying he’s done _this_ with a bloke is massively vague, and he hasn’t any clue what that means, practically speaking. _This_ could mean a single hand job in the men’s toilet of a club, or it could mean someone laying Louis out and taking the time to finger him open and fuck him, make him come around their cock, or a million things in between. Harry’s not sure it matters, really, but he suddenly feels overwhelmed by just how little he knows.

The first time a bloke had fucked Harry, he’d cried afterward. Not because it’d been bad -- it’d been lovely, actually, and he’d came so hard that afterward he’d laid back on the bed and suddenly he was crying without even realizing it, not unhappy at all but overwhelmed by the sensation of _so much, so much_ , the only two words he could think for several moments.

He doesn’t want to make Louis cry. He’s not sure that Louis would, even if this is the first time for him, but he still doesn’t want to anyway.

But Louis shakes his head. “No, definitely not,” he insists, wiggling his hips like he’s trying to prove it, trying to keep Harry from taking his hand away. “I can handle it,” he says. “Just… been a bit.”

Harry frowns, trying to guess _what’s_ been a bit -- fingers? Louis’ own, or someone else’s, maybe? Or if he means having an actual cock up his arse, which means it’s been a _while_ , so it _has_ happened before, and if so –

He has to stop thinking, then. He has to, or all he’ll be able to focus on is what Louis’ done with anyone that isn’t him, and that’s not – that’s not this, and it doesn’t matter anyway. This isn’t anything else that isn’t the two of them in this bed. Everything else is shut out firmly.

“Okay,” he promises, kissing the edge of Louis’ knee before pressing his finger in slowly. If that’s what Louis wants, then he won’t stop.

Louis whines at the second finger Harry works in, and groans at the third. By then Harry’s flushed, sweating already and so hard he thinks he might pass out from all the blood rushing out of his head, because _fuck_ , this is what Louis feels like from the inside. He’s tight and hot and slick and he’s gasping and squirming back on Harry’s fingers like he can’t get enough of them.

There’s too much Harry wants to do. He wants to lean in and lick the clutch of Louis’ arse to know what it takes like, see if it sends him squirming and begging like it does for Harry. He wants to climb on top of Louis and pull his smaller hands around his hip and guide them into his own arse until he can’t remember his name. He wants to plant a hand against Louis’ chest and hold him to the bed so he can’t flutter away again.

He keeps crooking and twisting the three fingers he’s got in Louis, determined to go on with it as long as Louis will let him, even if his own free hand is grabbing too hard at Louis’ knee.

“Fuck, stop,” Louis says eventually, reaching down the stop Harry at the wrist.

“Want you to come,” he mumbles, because that’s what he wants most of all – he wants to be the one to make Louis come. Jesus, just thinking about it is getting him harder than anything else he’s done in possibly his entire life, even the stuff dirtier by miles – just the thought of being the one to make Louis Tomlinson come tops them all.

“Not until – until,” Louis says, going unintelligible at the end. “Not ‘til you’re in me.”

Harry has to squeeze his eyes tightly at that, because the words are nearly enough to get him off all over Louis’ stomach. And he really, really, doesn’t want to let Louis down, if that’s what he wants.

He drags his slick fingers over the top of his thigh as he sits back and fumbles the condom open, feeling amateurish and young, like he’s suddenly completely forgotten how to fuck in the face of getting to fuck _Louis_. But he manages, and then draws Louis’ legs up around his waist, and then he has to breath heavily because he’s pushing in, slowly, barely moving at all and still lighting up all across his skin from the feel of Louis stretching around him.

“Oh,” Louis says when he’s in him all the way. “Oh my God.”

It’s a long time before Harry can shift back and start to move, even slowly, because it’s too much, and he’s begging himself not to say something awful like _fuck, I love you_. So he bites his lip and waits until he thinks he can manage to pull back an inch without losing it.

“Please,” Louis asks him quietly, and that’s what finally gets him to manage.

He goes slow, bracing himself over Louis with one arm as he thrusts. His free hand can’t stay still, drifting over Louis’ face where his eyelids are fluttering shut, and his stomach where his muscles are contracting as they move. He dips his hand down to trace the seam of Louis’ leg, bumping his hard cock, all pink and wet and perfect. Louis’ eyes open at that, but he doesn’t say anything, just watches Harry carefully as he thrusts harder, biting back a groan.

He’s too close too fast, and fuck, he wants Louis to come, but then Louis catches him by the arm that’s bracing him and _yanks_ so their chests are flush, and Jesus, that nearly does him in, the new angle somehow tighter, and Louis’ face just there, waiting for Harry to kiss him, and --

When he does kiss him, Louis whines way in the back of his throat. He only has a moment to grab Harry’s hand and bring it to his cock, tucked tight between their bodies, before he shoots off over Harry’s hand with another whine, going impossibly tight around Harry as he does.

 _Jesus_ , Harry thinks hysterically as he leans back and thrusts again, more erratically. He can’t focus, not with Louis gasping beneath him, and Louis’ come all over his fist. He barely realizes he’s doing it when he lifts his hand up to his mouth, licking off a bit that’s dripping down the curve of his wrist. It tastes like _Louis_.

“Oh my God, Haz, you--” Louis says, sounding awed and out of breath, but Harry doesn’t hear what comes after that because he’s coming with a shout, his heart beating so hard in his chest it feels like it must be near to bursting.

He doesn’t mean to collapse on top of Louis, but he must, because eventually Louis is prodding him the ribs. “Can’t breathe,” he mumbles, and Harry wants to whine, but he ends up laughing as he rolls off Louis, tossing the used condom into the bin beside the bed. He wipes his messy hand on the sheets -- over the side of the bed, at least, so neither of them have to sleep in the wet. Louis wrinkles his nose, but doesn’t protest beyond that, so Harry figures he’s off the hook and flops beside him.

“Wow,” Louis says. “That was, um.”

“Brilliant?” Harry asks. He thinks there’s a better word for it, but he feels wobbly and a bit brain dead, and all he wants his to gather Louis up in his arms and wait for his breathing to even out. So he does, pulling Louis against his chest.

“‘S’one word for it,” Louis says. His head fits against the curve of Harry’s collarbone, and he rests on hand on Harry’s stomach, just above the butterfly. Harry thinks he sounds as dazed as he feels, and it makes something pleased and a bit smug curl in his stomach just beneath where Louis’ hand sits -- _I did that_.

“D’you shag everyone like that?” Louis asks. His voice is going for something like a joke, but he doesn’t quite get there all the way for how he’s still a bit breathless.

“Nah,” Harry says. In truth, he can scarcely remember anything else besides the last hour. He knows this isn’t what sex is usually like, though. This is enormously more vast and encompassing. “Only you.”

“Only me,” Louis repeats quietly, like he’s trying out the words. “Hm.”

He sounds pleased by it, and then they lie there in silence. Eventually, Louis’ breathing goes steadier, and his eyes shut.

They lay there, and Harry waits. He expects that at any moment, the world will tip on its axis, suddenly irrevocably changed for what they’ve done. For an instant, he feels a surge of something sour – that now everyone’ll have been right, that it turns out he did want to fuck Louis Tomlinson very much, and how that’s something thousands of people somehow managed to claim before he even did himself – but he shakes it off. Fuck it, he decides. There’s nothing else, right now, except the two of them. There’s nothing that matters besides Louis curled up against him, his breath evening out as he drifts off, wanting him, wanting him _back_.

So he waits for some signal, some enormous sign of the universe recognizing they’ve gone past the tipping point. It doesn’t come, though, and eventually he drifts off as well, surprisingly easily, his nose just tucked against the crown of Louis’ head as the sun sets.

-

When he wakes up, the cabin is entirely dark save for the lamp beside the bed. Louis is asleep, mouth open against the pillow and drooling a bit.

Harry climbs out of bed quietly, trying not to bang around too much as he makes his way to the kitchen. It’s late, but he’s starving, and he supposes Louis will be too if he doesn’t just wind up sleeping through until breakfast.

There’s hardly anything in the kitchen, just dried beans and rice and a few wilted looking potatoes, but there’s a cabinet full of spices, and it’s enough to bung together something close-ish to a risotto, even if it does come out looking a bit funny.

He’s nearly finished when he hears the wooden floor above him creak, and then Louis’ face is peering over the loft railing.

“It’s ten at night,” he says, smiling upside down at him.

“Explains why I’m hungry, then,” Harry says. He sets two plates on the slab of butcher block in the middle of the kitchen and pulls up a stool, not bothering to ask if Louis wants any. He will – he’s never met a meal he hasn’t at least insisted on having a bite of, so long as Harry’s known him.

Sure enough, Louis comes padding down the stairs a moment later.

“Gimme,” he says, grabbing lazily at one of the bowls Harry’s got.

“Who says it’s for you?” he asks, thunking it down in front of Louis anyway.

“Me,” Louis says, stealing Harry’s fork and shoveling an enormous bite into his mouth. “Whaissit?” he mumbles.

“Dunno,” Harry shrugs, grabbing his own bowl. “A mystery.”

“Perfect,” Louis says, like mystery rice-mush is his favorite food in the entire world. “Love it.”

Harry can’t help how much he smiles as he watches him eat.

-

When they sleep, it’s with Louis tucked up under Harry’s arm again, both of them naked again, Louis’ breath tickling Harry’s chest.

Morning comes awfully quick.

-

Louis’ last minute arrangement for the cabin means they have to be out by nine, so they’re stumbling out of bed and re-packing their bags far too early. Harry feels like he could stay in this cabin -- fuck, in this _bed_ \-- with Louis for the rest of his life, probably.

Except that’s not how it goes. So he locks the door behind them and stows the hidden key back under the fake rock out front, trying not to feel wistful as they get into the car.

They start to pull away, and suddenly Harry feels the urge to have a strop. He doesn’t want to _go_. It’s hardly fair they’ve only gotten to spend a night there, and alright, maybe _fair_ hasn’t got anything to do with it, but it still makes something sour rise up in his chest, makes him want to stamp his feet until he gets his way and they can just turn around, hole up again until they’re good and ready to leave.

They can’t, though. And anyway, they’re behind from cutting the drive so short yesterday, even though Harry doesn’t feel the least bit sorry about that decision.

So they keep driving, and eventually the smudge of trees in the rearview mirror behind them where Harry thinks the cabin probably sits is so blurry he can hardly see it. Then they crest a hill, curve down its eastern edge, and when Harry looks back, the smudge is gone.

-

Throughout the day they stop at a burger restaurant, two roadside parks that are blessedly empty where they can piss and stretch their legs, and finally at a small convenience store tucked off a state highway somewhere in the middle of Kentucky. It’s cramped and full of tinned food and cuts of meat that Harry doesn’t realize, with a single petrol pump outside and a noticeboard just in the foyer with slips advertising bait and used snowmobiles and puppies to a good home.

While Harry fills the car up Louis wanders back inside, and before the tank’s even full he comes back out with an unfamiliar set of keys in hand, an old fishing bobber dangling off them from a weathered chain.

“Found us a place to stay,” he says mysteriously, shoving the keys into Harry’s hand as they climb into the car.

Harry doesn’t ask, just obeys as Louis directs him down the road.

-

The place Louis’ found is a cabin, again, but it’s not at all like the one from the day before. It’s a run-down hunting lodge, apparently, one the girl behind the counter at the convenience store sometimes rents out when her father isn’t using it, and Louis’d sweet-talked her into letting them have it for the night. Probably bribed her a bit as well.

It’s fucking impossible to find, though, even with the girl’s directions written in loopy handwriting scrawled on a torn sheet of lined paper, Louis carefully narrating them out loud. Harry pulls down the wrong dirt road twice before they manage to come out in the proper clearing and spot the cabin, a hunkered-down, worn box of graying wood set just on the edge of a copse of gnarled trees. When they open the door they find a single wood paneled room with a quilt-covered bed shoved in one corner and a wood stove and an icebox in another, both of which Harry is sure are older than his mum by a considerable amount. There’s one cramped toilet tucked off to the side and separated by an unevenly hung door, and two small windows on the back wall, and not much else.

“Bit less posh, then,” Louis says, toeing at the curling linoleum on the floor.

“Don’t care,” Harry says honestly. He’s just glad to be out of the car, and somewhere properly alone with Louis, with a door that locks. He doesn’t really give a shit about the rest of it, or how it smells like acidic lemon cleanser and stale wood smoke.

“Dinner?” Louis asks, but Harry’s already shaking his head, toeing off his shoes and yanking his shirt over his head. Fuck food. He needs Louis.

“Not hungry,” he says, herding Louis towards the bed like a sheepdog. “You?”

“Not – particularly,” Louis says, his voice shuddering a bit when Harry stoops to suck a lovebite against his neck.

“Good,” he says, and yanks Louis down onto the bed with him. The springs groan like they’re about to snap. Harry doesn’t give a fuck.

-

Later, when Louis is fucking into him with a rhythm that’s echoing in Harry’s chest like a gunshot, he thinks there really _is_ a chance they’re going to mortally wound the bed, given how it’s creaking.

“We’re -- fuck, we’re gonna break some grizzled old hunter’s bed,” Harry gasps out, torn between a laugh and a hiss.

“He can take it out of the deposit,” Louis whines, arching toward Harry. His thumb catches over Harry’s nipple and his hips judder, face screwed up. Harry thinks Louis’ close to coming; he also thinks he’s closer.

“There’s no deposit, idiot,” Harry mumbles. “You just -- just handed an envelope full of money to a woman in a shop.” He digs his fingers into Louis’ lower back, trying to keep him as close as possible.

“Well,” Louis agrees.

“Fuck the bed,” Harry groans, pushing his hips up to meet Louis’. “Make me come, please.”

Louis whines low in his throat, and then scrunches up his face in concentration as he doubles his efforts.

“Anything you want,” he promises, his dick filling Harry up so entirely he thinks he can feel it in his toes. “Anything you want.”

-

They don’t break the bed, which is probably good, not even when they wake in the middle of the night and Harry gets his hand inside Louis’ pants to jerk him off, sending the whole thing shaking again. It creaks, but stays solid.

When they’ve both come again, they lie still, twisted up around each other. There’s a storm building outside, the wind is picking up noticeably and rattling the poorly-fitted windows, but those hold as well. The cabin moans around them, but it holds them in safe until they both fall asleep again.

-

When they leave in the morning, Harry doesn’t know what he feels at all.

Rushed, maybe. Like there’s something pushing at their backs. Paul’s called four times since the night before, and Harry knows it’s because he hasn’t bothered to phone him once, let alone every day like he promised. But he _can’t_ – he thinks about phoning to check in with Paul, and how that’ll spiral into ten other things, and he’ll have to think about everything again, the tour and the promo coming and all of it and he just _can’t_.

So he ignores his phone, and eventually turns it off with fingers that feel cramped and tense. Louis glances over at him when he chucks it into the backseat, but Harry just shakes his head and rests his hand on Louis’ knee as they drive, trying to feel like there’s not an enormous clock ticking down to the second they time they’ve got left.

-

Kentucky to the far edge of Pennsylvania feels as if it takes days, even if it’s less than eight hours total. The sky is heavy gray all day, and it seems to slow down time, making Harry exhausted and a bit headachey. By the time they’re edging around Gettysburg, he feels like he’s run a marathon.

“Dunno where to stay tonight,” Louis admits, rubbing the heel of one hand against his eye. He sounds like Harry feels -- a bit gritty and worn out, even if they’ve done nothing at all except drive, the same thing they’ve done for the past five days straight.

Harry considers. Almost all the other places had sort of fallen into their laps, somehow, or Louis had made them appear as if by magic. But they’re both exhausted, need to stop soon, and it seems unlikely now that a cabin or a bed and breakfast is going to appear in front of them, the perfect isolated nest for them to hide away in.

Harry’d left the tent and their sleeping bags back at the hunter’s cabin, too, sure they wouldn’t need them again and not particularly interested in lugging them on his flight back to London.

Not that he particularly wants to sleep outside tonight, anyway. It’s just one less option they have now.

“We can just stay at a hotel,” Harry says, feeling it twist unpleasantly in his stomach. It’s fine, he tells himself. It won’t be like the first night -- he’ll only get one room, and Lou will be right there with him the whole time, but.

But it’s still too much like the real world, or at least _their_ real world, hotel rooms and continental breakfasts and not quite knowing how to handle each other. The thing he’d been trying to keep ahead of this whole week.

Louis just nods, though, because neither of them has a better idea, and when Harry finds an exit with a Holiday Inn he pulls off, desperate to just arrive wherever it is they’re going, even if it’s not his first choice.

There’s a teenage girl at the reception desk when he walks in, and he nearly freezes, but manages to at least keep walking forward, which is probably good, as stopping dead in the lobby might be more conspicuous than anything else.

She barely glances up as he pays for a room in Paul’s name, and he and Louis slip in through a side door, managing to avoid anyone else in the corridor.

Their room is nondescript and efficient, and a bit choking for it. There are two beds, and the sheets are clearly made to stand up to regular washing with industrial strength detergent, not for comfort. Harry can already predict how they’ll itch. There’ll be nothing in the tiny refrigerator, perhaps twelve channels on the television, and the air conditioner will rattle wildly when it kicks on in the middle of the night. Harry can guess it all already.

But it’s what they’ve got, so they shut the door behind them, and Harry tries to let the thump of the lock sliding into place feel comforting.

Louis sprawls on the nearest bed, leaving room for Harry beside him, and Harry only stops to toe off his shoes and go for a wee before he joins him, scrunching himself up small next to Louis, not quite touching.

They’ll both be home tomorrow, he thinks, Louis off to Doncaster, and Harry will be -- wherever he winds up. He hasn’t really bothered to make plans. For a second, he wants to pound his fists on the bed, because he knows -- he knows it won’t be like this, once they’re back. It’d be stupid to think it could be. That doesn’t make the knowledge any less unpleasant, though.

Instead of having a tantrum, though, he just tries to focus on Louis: the Batman movie he’s found on the television, and the gentle rise of his chest as he breathes, and the warmth of his hand when he slowly sets it on top of Harry’s, just resting there, soft and sure.

Eventually, they both drift off while the Joker explodes a building.

-

When he wakes, it’s to the asthmatic wheeze of the air conditioner, the hotel room dark save for the television. He flicks it off, and glances at the clock -- nearly midnight, Christ, they’ve been out for hours.

Louis snuffles beside him in the sudden silence, and reaches out an arm blindly until it makes contact with Harry’s shoulder.

Suddenly Harry can’t stand it, being here with Louis and not kissing him.

“Lou,” he mumbles, rolling over to wrap an arm around his waist. “Wake up, Lou,” he says, fitting his face in the curve of Louis’ neck. He’s warm, a bit sweaty, and he smells so familiar Harry doesn’t know what to do with himself.

“What,” Louis murmurs, voice raspy. “Time’s it?”

“Late,” Harry says. He puts one hand under the hem of Louis’ t-shirt, resting it on the curve of his abdomen.

“Mm,” Louis says, cracking an eye open. “We’ve got flights tomorrow. Still gotta drive to New York, as well.”

Harry’s stomach clenches up. “I know. ‘S’why you should wake up.”

He doesn’t want to say what he’s thinking, which is _we’ve only got a bit more time left_ , because it feels harsh, even if it’s true; he thinks Louis hears it anyway, though.

“Wasn’t sleeping, anyway,” Louis says softly, leaning up to yank his shirt over his head, mussing his hair up as he does.

“Liar,” Harry says. “C’mere.” He wraps both arms around Louis and drags him up so he’s propped up on the headboard. “Let me--” He fumbles with the button of the cut-off shorts Louis’d fallen asleep in, his hands suddenly too frantic in his rush to get as much of Louis to himself as he can to coordinate properly. “Fuck,” he whines when he bungles his second try.

Louis still looks a bit sleepy and not quite up to speed, but he reaches down and takes Harry’s hands, pulling them away gently. “Here, it’s all right,” he says softly. “I’ve got it.” He opens his flies and shimmies his shorts and pants off, leaning back just where Harry’d put him when he’s done, the starchy sheets shoved off to the side now.

Harry can only stare at him for a moment, and then he’s ducking down so quickly he bumps his chin against Louis’ hip, making him hiss when his teeth rattle together. “Sorry, sorry,” he apologizes. It’s just that he really, _really_ wants to get his mouth on Louis’ cock, and the sense that he’s got a timer counting down above both their heads is making him rushed and careless.

“It’s okay,” Louis said, running a hand through Harry’s hair. “Slow down, yeah? ‘M not going anywhere.”

Harry lets out a garbled laugh at that, because it’s patently untrue in the broader sense, even though he’s right for the moment -- he probably won’t disappear if Harry doesn’t get his mouth on him in the next ten seconds.

He doesn’t necessarily want to take the chance, though.

But he takes a breath, steadying himself, and then moves slower as he leans to take Louis’ cock in his hand. He’s not quite hard, but Harry can feel him starting to firm up, and he ducks further to suck him down, because he wants to feel that in his mouth, Louis’ dick getting fat and wet.

Louis lets out a breathy “Oh,” and then resumes carefully stroking Harry’s hair, leaning back while Harry bobs up and down, hollowing his cheeks and running the flat of his tongue against Louis’ cock.

“Jesus, Haz,” Louis whispers. “You’re so--”

Whatever he is, though, Harry doesn’t hear, because he pulls off an inch to twist his hand around Louis’ shaft, and Louis cuts himself off with another soft whine, and then falls quiet while Harry sucks him off.

It’s not the first cock Harry’s had in his mouth by a long shot -- not even the first time he’s had _Louis’_ cock in his mouth -- but something about this time feels inordinately heavy and intimate, the way Louis just lies back and lets Harry make him feel good, the way Harry _wants_ to be good to him, so desperately. He’s hard in his own jeans, but he barely thinks about it, too focused on the sharp taste of Louis on his tongue, the soft way he’s petting Harry’s hair, the way his breathing picks up when Harry flicks his tongue around the head.

He wants Louis to come. He wants Louis to come in his mouth and know that it was _him_ that did this, _him_ that sucked Louis off until he whined and writhed in a shitty hotel in Pennsylvania until he shot off down his throat. He wants to have that for himself.

“D’you want it?” Louis asks on one tight twist Harry’s wrist, his hips jerking. “‘Cos I’m gonna come, d’you want--”

Harry can’t even force himself to pull off to say yes, _God_ , yes, so he just moans and doubles his efforts, tightening his mouth like his life depends on it.

“Fuck, fuck,” Louis pants, and Harry knows he’s about to fall apart, so he reaches up and grazes one fingernail of Louis’ nipple, and that’s it. Louis cries out hoarsely and starts to spill in Harry’s mouth, hips shuddering as he does. Harry swallows as best he can manage, and then pulls off before Louis’ quite finished, so the last spurt of his come lands on his lower lip and his chin.

He doesn’t wipe it off, leaves it there while Louis sucks him off in return. He doesn’t cry when he comes, but when he sucks his lower lip into his mouth and tastes the salt of Louis’ spunk there, marking him but still not enough, never enough, it’s a near thing.

-

It’s foggy when they wake, and much too early. They divide and conquer, Louis sneaking down to the lobby to fetch an armful of stale bagels and overripe fruit from the continental breakfast while Harry shoves all their things into bags and stows them in the boot of the car before going back to the room.

Louis has his small pile of food dumped on top of the unmade bed, and they eat together quietly, their crossed legs bumping at the knees. When Harry finishes his last bit of banana, he stands reluctantly from the bed, throwing the peel in a bin, and then holds out a hand for Louis.

He takes it, standing up as well, and for a moment it’s just the two of them, their hands linked in a quiet, chilly hotel room. It feels like an ending, like the last turn of a page, and Harry leans in close, rests his free hand on Louis’ chin and kisses him softly.

“Ready?” he asks.

“Don’t suppose I’ve got a choice,” Louis says through a thin smile.

They drop their hands as they open the door.

-

Four hours later New York City rises up in front of them. Louis’ flight into Sheffield leaves a bit after noon, though, so Harry heads straight for JFK without stopping, trying to ignore the tightening in his chest that amps up the closer they get. It’s just the traffic, he tells himself, the nervousness inherent in trying to navigate New York. That’s all.

Louis doesn’t say anything as they approach, but neither does Harry. For the life of him, he can’t figure out what they might say.

-

He pulls the car up to the departures area, and shuts it off with something like regret. It’s stupid, but it’s the last time he and Louis will sit in this car, this one that’s taken them across an entire country, and the knowledge of it feels like a loss.

“Paul said someone’ll meet you,” he mumbles, focusing down at his hands where they rest on the steering wheel. “Get you to the gate and all.”

“Fantastic,” Louis says. Harry knows it’s meant to come out biting -- Louis hates being escorted around more than most of them, and hates even more that it’s necessary -- but mostly he just sounds tired.

He wonders if he’d be allowed to reach over and touch his thumb to the edge of Louis’ mouth, just to try and turn it up a bit. But there are crowds, hoards of people streaming by the car as they head towards the terminals, and Louis has hunched himself so far inward that Harry isn’t sure he’d be able to reach. He keeps his hands on the steering wheel instead.

“Text me when you’re settled?” he asks, biting his lip and squinting through the windscreen.

“Yeah,” Louis says quietly, already sounding a thousand miles away. “I’ll let you know.”

 _Don’t say goodbye_ , Harry thinks, suddenly and frantically. He’s sure that if Louis says goodbye, that’ll be it -- that he’ll mean it. Harry decides it’s all right if he can’t lean in, can’t try to kiss Louis or even touch him, so long as he doesn’t say goodbye.

“Better go,” Louis says slowly. He shoves his sunglasses onto his face too forcefully and flips the hood of his sweatshirt up over his head. It doesn’t disguise him much. Nothing ever really can.

Harry nods. “Be safe,” he says. There’s a beat, long and almost palpable, and then a wave of heat and noise hits him as Louis wrenches the car door open, dragging his bag with him. Then he’s gone.

He watches, but it’s only seconds before Louis’ body is swallowed up in the moving crowd. Harry’s tempted to stay there, to watch the spot where he’d disappeared, but he knows he’s already lingered here too long. Much longer and someone’ll spot him. So he just blinks heavily, and then carefully pulls the car out into traffic, leaving the airport behind too quickly.

-

His own flight into London isn’t for -- what, eight hours now? Something like that -- he can’t really bear to drag out his mobile and find out. With nothing else to do, he drives until he arrives at a hotel he remembers liking, once, because he hasn’t any idea where else to go, and he’s suddenly bone tired.

It feels all wrong, going through the familiar lobby on his own without the other lads or security or any of the usual trappings. He can’t help but assume chaos is about to descend upon him once he’s recognized, and then feels like a tit for thinking it. There’s a bald man in an expensive-looking suit behind the front desk, and he must recognize Harry, or at least his name on his credit card, because his eyes go wide and he becomes suddenly very accommodating -- it’s fine he’ll only need the room for a bit, of course -- but at least he doesn’t say it, and Harry makes it upstairs to the last in a long string of hotel rooms without drawing a crowd.

It’s modern and white and still inside, only the quietest hint of traffic noise leaching in through the window from fifteen stories up. Harry looks around at it a bit unsteadily, and then flops face-first onto the clean white duvet, too tired to even kick off his shoes, only barely managing to set the alarm on his mobile to go off in a bit. He’s not particularly keen to miss his flight; there’s not much worth staying here for, at the moment.

-

The sun is setting when he returns to the airport for the second time that day, a washed-out, grayish-blue mess on the horizon. He turns over the rental car on autopilot, and the security bloke Paul’s arranged to escort him meets him there, thankfully handling all the details. Harry’s head has felt all fogged up since he’d woken from his restless nap, and he doesn’t suppose he’s quite up to the task of finding receipts and signing forms, so he’s glad to let the man -- Daniel, he thinks -- take over. He flicks his phone on and off, uninterested in most of the messages that have appeared over the course of the day. There’s nothing from Louis, even though he’d said he’d let Harry know when he’s settled, but he supposes that doesn’t mean much.

Daniel leaves him eventually, once he’s gotten Harry through security and to the spot near his gate -- he’s not sure what the name for it is, but it’s the same type of elite waiting room that every airline has in every airport, the same complimentary drinks and tinted glass walls that keep out the rest of the people milling around the terminal. They’re almost always exclusively patronized by businessmen on work trips and old women in expensive outerwear who couldn’t give a rat’s arse about One Direction.

Daniel’s giving him some instructions -- call Paul, Harry figures they boil down to -- but he misses most of them, and once Daniel leaves, he ducks out of the glassed-in lounge to buy a packet of sleeping tablets from the shop across the hall. He’s only in line for a minute, but he still hears the clicks of several camera phones aimed at him, and for the first time in ages it makes him feel a bit panicky. He doesn’t bother to take his change, just scurries back into the walled-in lounge, nodding apologetically at the woman behind the desk smiling at him placidly. He waits until his pulse slows down to normal and then pops the tablets into his mouth. They taste of the plasticky packaging they’d come in, and stick sideways in his throat until he asks for a water.

The woman moves to get it for him in a practiced, efficient manner, but then he croaks out, “Wait, actually,” and asks her if she wouldn’t mind getting him a gin and tonic instead. He hasn’t seen a bar, but he assumes there is one. There always is.

She wouldn’t mind at all, of course, and she can find him anything else he’d like, no problem, and her name is Lucy if she can help at _all_.

Harry nods and waits for his plane. He’s already half asleep when he boards, and his eyes are shut before they’re even airborne.

-

It’s raining when he lands in London, which feels about right.

His house is technically still being renovated, although the last he’d heard, the bedrooms are more or less sorted out, and it’s the kitchen that mostly still needs seeing to. He could still have the driver that’d been waiting for him at Heathrow take him there, though -- loads of his stuff has already been carted over, and there’s a bed for him to sleep in and a shower where he could wash off the grime of the plane.

He could, easily, but he feels strangely like that’s too big a step, just showing up unannounced at a house he hasn’t properly moved into yet. The thought nearly makes him laugh out loud, suddenly, because Jesus, is this what normal people feel like? That sleeping in their own home is too much to just jump into?

He’s sure it isn’t. He’s sure this isn’t normal. But he still doesn’t want to go, so he just -- won’t. He won’t.

He texts Nick instead.

_hiiiiii pal_  
_back in londontown_  
_can i please sleep at yours tonight grimmy old pal_

_thought u were building a great posh manse specifically so u didn’t have to sleep on sofas anymore_ , Nick replies a moment later. And then: _don’t call it londontown, christ_

 _it’s not readyyyy :( :( :(_ Harry replies. _plus i miss you. and puppy. mostly puppy actually. brilliant dog you’ve got, did you know?_

 _ugh_ , Nick says. _right for the weak spot, complimenting a man’s dog. yeah alright get your arse over here._

Harry grins, because it’s nice to feel welcomed home in any way, even though he’d fully intended to let himself in with the spare key he’s got to Nick’s even if he hadn’t heard from him. It’s a bit nicer to know that someone is waiting for him somewhere, now.

 _missed you too_ , Nick adds a moment later. It doesn’t settle the vaguely upset feeling that’s been sitting in Harry’s stomach since he left New York all the way, but it helps a bit at least.

-

The first thing Nick makes him do when he turns up is take a shower, because apparently Harry’s hair is “disgusting, _Jesus_.” Privately, he doesn’t think it’s that bad, but Nick’s flapping him off towards the toilet and handing him a glass of red wine to take with him, and actually, that sounds a bit nice, so he doesn’t argue it.

“Thought you were meant to be back like a week ago,” Nick says when Harry wanders into the lounge forty-five minutes later, tugging the last clean t-shirt he’d had in his bag over his damp hair. There’s leftover takeaway on a plate for him, and E! News is flashing mutely on the television. There’s more wine, also, and Harry’s got a headache from the flight and the sleeping pills and the tiny schnapps he’d had when he’d woken in a daze on the plane, but he helps himself to the red anyway, filling up the glass he’d emptied in the shower.

“Had planned you this whole, like, surprise, welcome home party, and you went and ruined it when you didn’t turn up,” Nick adds.

Harry grins, and kicks at Nick’s knee before flopping down next to him on the sofa, trying not to slosh his wine everywhere. Puppy immediately leaves Nick’s lap and settles onto Harry, licking at his chin happily. “You were never, shut up.”

“Might’ve,” Nick says. “Like, I _could’ve_ done. How would you know?”

“You’d’ve shouted at me about it already if you had,” Harry says, shaking his head.

“Yeah, all right,” Nick laughs. “So what held you up? Stay in L.A. for a bit?”

Harry scrunches up his mouth a bit and rearranges his feet underneath him. “No, actually, we -- well. Went on a sort of road trip type thing?”

“By yourself?”

Harry shakes his head again, and looks down at his hands. Puppy’s trying to nudge herself under his arm, now, as he’s apparently not arranged in a way that’s to her liking. “No. Um, Louis went with me, actually.”

Nick doesn’t say anything to that, just cocks his head and looks at Harry curiously. The silence is a bit unnerving, actually, because Nick’s got something to say about nearly everything, and for a moment Harry wonders what he’s reading on his face to make him so quiet.

“Well. Did you two have a nice time, then?” Nick asks eventually.

“Um. Basically, yeah,” Harry says. All of a sudden he’s not sure if he knows how to explain what happened. Nick _knows_ him, knows him better than almost anyone, but even so, Harry’s not even sure he knows _himself_ what to say about Louis, and the last week, so perhaps it makes sense that Nick can’t tell either.

“Haz,” Nick says, gently enough to make Harry flinch a bit. Nick’s rubbish at gentle. “You’ve got, like, feelings all over your face, love. D’you want to talk about them, or d’you want me to leave you alone with the wine?”

“I’m not sure,” Harry says carefully. “Well, no, don’t go. I just -- I’m not sure I know how to explain?”

Nick just sips his own wine and blinks at him patiently.

“I just think things have like, changed between us,” Harry says slowly. “With Louis, I mean.” He hesitates, because he doesn’t want to spell it out, necessarily – it’s not just his business but Louis’ too, and he feels strange about sharing it with anyone for several reasons.

“Hasn’t it been like that for a bit, though?” Nick asks, clearly thinking Harry means it in the usual sense – that Louis doesn’t laugh at his jokes properly anymore, is too gentle with him, too removed by miles. Harry’s moped about it both drunkenly and soberly to Nick enough times for him to know it all by heart, at this point.

“Um,” he says, wavering. He might be a tiny bit drunk, it turns out. “Changed again,” he says vaguely.

Nick peers at him, squinting, but then his face does a thing, and Harry remembers that obfuscation is definitely not a personal strength of his.

“Oh,” Nick says.

“Yeah,” Harry echoes. For an instant, he feels defensive. “I know it’s like… so if you’re going to say something, just – don’t, okay?”

Nick’s expression flickers, somewhere between unhappy and pitying. “Wasn’t going to,” he says quietly, patting Harry’s knee.

“Just dunno what to do,” Harry says miserably, the prickly feeling falling away from him in a whoosh. He grabs Puppy round the middle and wiggles around so that both their heads are in Nick’s lap. He lifts a hand and pets them both in turn. “Fuck, he’s like – he’s my best mate, you know? And everything was so…” He waves a hand. “And now it’s--”

“Yeah,” Nick says. “I know.”

“I’ll never forgive myself if I’ve ruined it,” Harry says sadly into the knee of Nick’s jeans.

“Oh popstar,” Nick says, and the sound of his voice nearly makes Harry want to cry. “Sit up, okay? Listen.”

He wrangles Harry up and makes him face him.

“I’m not going to pretend to be qualified to give advice on the matter at all, but Louis Tomlinson would probably murder a man for you, all right? Even if things are… whatever.” Nick shrugs. He looks uncomfortable, and for a second Harry wants to hug him, because he _knows_ Nick is kind of pants at this, trying to give like, serious advice. The fact that he’s trying so hard makes Harry’s chest hurt a bit.

“You mean as much to him as he does to you, any idiot can tell that much. And you’ll either work this new thing out or not, but that bit’s not going to change,” Nick adds. “He’s the most stubbornly loyal person I’ve ever met, that one. He’s never going to hate you.”

Harry doesn’t mean to, but something like a whine escapes his throat, and he flops back down into Nick’s lap.

“D’you promise?” he asks, quietly, knowing that’s not something Nick can give him and wanting it all the same.

“Promise,” Nick says.

-

Nick’s left for work when Harry wakes on his sofa the next morning, but he leaves a note with a smiley face on it tucked underneath Harry’s mug on the kitchen counter, a helpful arrow pointed towards the kettle as if Harry hasn’t made his own tea here a thousand times. He still smiles at it, though, and after his second cup, lets himself out to wait for the car he’s called.

It takes him to his house, but he doesn’t go inside. He lets himself into the garage, instead, fishing the keys to his Range Rover off the peg and tossing his bag in the back without bothering to go inside. He doesn’t want to go in. He wants to go _home_.

When he pulls up in front of his mum’s house three hours later, he realizes he hasn’t told her he’s coming.

Her car is parked out front, though, and when he lets himself in she’s in the kitchen. When she turns and spots him, she shrieks.

“Darling!” she says, brushing her hands off. “Did I know you were coming?”

“No,” he says, dropping his bag and crossing over to her. The kitchen smells of something baking, something with cinnamon, and suddenly he wants to cry just a bit, because it feels familiar and foreign all at once. “I’m a surprise.”

He hugs her, then, stooping down to rest his chin on her shoulder. His mum’s a fierce hugger, and he thinks his ribs might crack when she squeezes him. He hopes she never stops.

“You certainly are,” she says, and then releases him. He blinks hard, and she must notice, because she frowns. “Are you all right?” she asks. “Why aren’t you in London getting ready for the premiere?”

She’s coming down for it, her and Robin and possibly Gemma, Harry’s not sure yet. He probably _could’ve_ waited until then to see her, but he also suspects he couldn’t, really, now that he’s here.

“S’not for a few days still. Wanted to see you.”

She makes a quizzical face at him as he flops down at the table, kicking his shoes off so they topple over each other beneath one of the chairs. It’s the sort of thing she’s always shouting at him about -- leaving his shoes around where people can trip over them.

“Well, I’m glad,” she says, not looking like she totally believes him. “Can I fix you tea?”

“Yes please,” he says, resting his head on the table. This is what he needed, he thinks -- to just sit in his mum’s kitchen while she moves around and fusses over him a bit. That will help with whatever it is that feels so unsettled under his skin. Hopefully.

She brings him a cup of tea and a cheese toastie a few minutes later, nudging his chair to get him to pick up his face so she can set it down, and then joins him at the table.

“What are you doing today?” he asks while he eats, mouth half full.

“Got to run into town for a bit, I think,” she says. “Need to do a shop, and there’s a few other things I’m meant to do.” She looks at him carefully, like she’s measuring him up, and he feels suddenly very much on display -- like it’ll only take her a few moments to ferret out what’s happened, just why he’s turned up on her doorstep unannounced. The idea makes him feel uncomfortable and relieved all at once. He’s not sure he wants to talk about it, but he’s tired of having it all stuck in his head rattling around and making him feel frayed and out of sorts all the time same.

If she can see anything on his face that says _I’ve shagged my best friend and probably fucked it all up and also I might be in love with him a bit_ , though, she doesn’t say.

“I can stay here with you if you’d rather, though,” she offers.

“Nooo,” he protests, finishing off his cheese toastie. “No, don’t mind me.” He wants to offer to come with her, but he’s not sure if he feels up to going out, and anyway, it’ll only make it take twice as long for her if they get stopped for pictures or something. “I’m mostly here for your sofa and your television anyway,” he lies. “Don’t plan to move all day, actually.”

She snorts, thwacking him on the back of the hand with a tea towel, but she’s still got that all-knowing look like she doesn’t believe him.

“Well then,” she says. “Better get started now.” She shuffles him off into the lounge, tea in hand, and drops a kiss on his forehead once she’s gathered her bag and her keys. “I’ll be back by four,” she tells him. “But you’ll phone if you need anything?”

“‘Course,” he promises her, snuggling down into the sofa.

-

When she gets back from the shop, Harry’s curled himself into the squishiest corner of the sofa and piled several blankets on top of him even though the air con’s running at full tilt. He’s got the blinds all drawn as well, and he’s feeling particularly cozy. He hasn’t even looked at his phone to check if Louis’ texted. He hasn’t heard it vibrate, anyway, but he still hasn’t checked, and he thinks that counts for something.

“Mummyyyy,” he whines happily when he hears her come in.

“Darling son,” she says, and even though he can’t see her face yet, he can practically hear her rolling her eyes at him fondly. “What can I do for you, my love?”

He holds his empty teacup above the edge of the sofa when she comes into view, pointing it towards her and smiling his best mummy’s boy grin. “Please?” he asks. He’d been dead serious about not getting off the sofa all day.

“Oh no,” she says, taking the cup from him. “I hadn’t realized your legs no longer worked. My poor boy.”

“Poor boy,” he agrees as she goes to start the kettle. “Need lots of tea to help.”

Her sigh from the kitchen sounds fond, and he smiles, snuggling further into his nest of blankets.

“Robin’ll be home for dinner,” she tells him when she returns with two cups of tea a moment later. He curls up his legs to make room for her beside him, and she sits. “Are you staying?”

He nods. He’d stay the rest of the week if he could, honestly, but he reckons she’ll go all suspicious and squinty again thinking that something’s wrong if he says so, so he focuses on the television instead.

After the episode of Bake-Off finishes, she takes their empty cups and sets them on the table beside the sofa. “I don’t mean to pry, but I’m your mother, so I have to ask,” she starts. “Is anything wrong?”

She’s looking at him, gently but knowingly, and it makes Harry’s stomach flop around. He wants to tell her everything and then have her sort it all out for him, since apparently he’s got no idea how to do it on his own, but he supposes he’s technically an adult, now, and this whole mess is well out of the jurisdiction of ‘things you can beg your mummy to fix for you.’

She loves Louis, as well. She knows that things are a bit different between the two of them now, but she adores Louis anyway, and Harry thinks if he has to explain to her how somewhere along the way he’s managed to muck it up even more between the two of them, he might cry a bit.

So he just shrugs, and then shifts around so he can sit beside her and rest his head on her shoulder.

“Just some stuff,” he says vaguely. “Nothing, like, too bad, just -- sorting some things out, I suppose.”

“D’you want to talk about any of it?” she asks.

He shakes his head. “Maybe in a bit.”

“Alright, love,” she says, kissing his hair. “In a bit.

-

Robin does come home in time for dinner, and his mum has an enormous pan of lasagne for them, as well as a few half-drunk bottles of red that she insists need finishing or else they’ll ‘go off,’ so by the time dinner is finished and he’s said his goodnights and shut the door of his old bedroom behind him, Harry’s full and a bit tipsy, overly warm in the sweatshirt and pair of too-short pyjama pants he’s found in his old wardrobe earlier.

He peels the sweatshirt off and tosses it in a heap, and then his pyjamas as well before crawling into his bed in his pants.

He wants to call Louis.

He’s only a bit drunk, so that’s not an excuse, really. He knows he should give Louis space to sort out… _this_ , the all-encompassing _this_ of whatever’s between them now. It’s a lot, he knows, and Louis had said he’d text when he was settled, so he just -- must not be. Settled.

Harry really ought to give him space. He pulls his phone out anyway, switching off the lamp and falling into bed with it in his hands, trying to talk himself out of it.

 _hi,_ he types out before erasing it.

 _miss you_ , he tries again, and then bins that as well, along with a few variations on the sentiment.

The cursor blinks at him, waiting, and he doesn’t know what to say to it. He shouldn’t say anything, probably, but he can feel it like an itch, the need to know that Louis is _somewhere_ , at least, and that he can reach him somehow, even if it’s not in the way he’d like.

Eventually he types out _can’t find my black jumper :( :( the one i had on the trip ?_ and sends it before he can think of a reason not to. Like how the black jumper he’s thinking of is sticking halfway out of his bag at the foot of his bed, for example.

He doesn’t know what he expects to get from it, anyway. He wants Louis to answer back straight away like he’s been waiting by his phone just to hear from Harry. He wants Louis to take the piss out of him because he can never find his things, always leaving them somewhere behind him like a trail of breadcrumbs. He wants Lou to drive to offer to drive to bloody Cheshire and help him look for it, which is preposterous for a lot of reasons, including how he hasn’t told Louis that’s where he is in the first place.

In the end, he supposes it doesn’t matter, because Louis doesn’t say anything at all, and he falls asleep with his phone on the bed next to him, silent.

-

He knows he has to go back to London eventually, though, and sooner rather than later. The movie premiere is in a few days, and he’s sure he’s meant to do a thousand other things around it, and anyway, he can’t just hide in his mum’s house the rest of his life because he suddenly feels alarmingly like he’s got a broken heart, or whatever this strange tenderness inside his chest is.

So he has an early breakfast with his mum and Robin before he leaves again, the day already foggy and humid.

He decides he’ll go to his house, unfinished though it is. He might as well start now, anyway, because -- because what’s the point waiting for it to start feeling like home? It never will if he keeps avoiding it, anyway.

So his mum sends him off with a kiss on both cheeks and a bit later he’s pulling up inside his front gates, typing in his code, which he’d set to be the same as his phone for the express purpose of not having to remember two separate things, especially one he’s not really trained himself to need yet.

The house is lovely. It doesn’t feel foreign, really, or unwelcoming. It feels _big_ , but that’s because it is. His decorators have got it bang on, mostly, and even though there are still some plastic sheets up to protect from the dust of the kitchen being finished, it’s lovely.

It’s lovely, and big, and Harry’s the only person in it.

Nick takes him out to lunch, because there’s nowhere for him to cook without a kitchen, and no food in the house for him _to_ cook, anyway, so they go to a pizza place that has a nice wine list and linger with Gillian until Nick has to run off to something. And then Harry’s home again, in his lovely, empty house.

He spends a while trying to set up his new flatscreen television, and gives it up for a bad job when the instructions tell him to attach a red bit that doesn’t seem to exist anywhere in the box. He leaves the mess in the lounge, resolving to sort it out later. He swims, for a while, but loses interest quickly, and mostly spends the rest of the day laying about in the chaise by the pool, idly checking his phone.

He has buckets of emails about his suit fitting, and interviews, and an incredibly complex timetable for the day of the movie, and it all makes his eyes swim a bit, so he shuts his phone off and goes inside as it starts to get dark.

He’s got an enormous bed, and his laptop is full of movies Zayn’s illegally downloaded onto it, and he can have a curry delivered in under half an hour if he phones the order in now. He can eat it in bed and watch a movie, and then sleep until it’s morning and figure out what the do with himself then.

It’s as good a plan as any.

-

Harry’s not sure what the noise that wakes him is, only that it’s late as fuck when he hears it, a high-pitched ding that takes him several moments to recognize -- understandable, given that it’s half two in the morning -- as his doorbell going.

He’s halfway to the front door before he starts to think about that. There’s no buzzer on the gates, and he’s sure he locked them behind him when he came in, so he’s not sure who’s ringing his bell, given the circumstances and the hour.

He hesitates for a moment -- what if it’s a crazed person who’s gone over the fence, somehow? -- but when he gets nearly to the door he peers out the frosted glass and is suddenly very, very sure he recognizes the blurry outline on the other side of it.

He shakes his head, not quite sure if he’s trusting his own eyes, and then opens it.

“Hi,” Louis says.

“Um,” Harry says slowly, feeling a bit dumb for a lot of reasons. Like how it’s arse o’clock, and he’s in his pants, and Louis is on his front step in the middle of London, even if they are hidden by the gate. “Hi.”

Louis is standing there on his front step in trackies and an oversized sweatshirt, looking for all the world like he’d rolled out of bed not ten minutes ago. Fuck, maybe he has.

Harry steps back, letting Louis in, because whatever this is, they probably don’t need to be doing it outside. He shuts the door behind them heavily.

“Your gate code’s the same as your phone’s,” Louis says, as if that explains it all. He’s got a small overnight bag, and he sets it at his feet.

“It is,” Harry agrees, a bit dazedly.

“Lux’s birthday,” Louis clarifies. He scuffs his Vans on the marble of the foyer.

“Yeah,” Harry says. “Why’re you here?”

Louis stops fidgeting, and looks up at him. “Is it not obvious?” he asks, half a smile twisting up his face. It looks equal parts amused and unsure.

Harry wants to laugh, because things haven’t felt _obvious_ between them for the better part of a year, the last week excluded.

He can guess, maybe, but he’s used to getting it wrong.

“Feels like you should probably say it anyway,” he says.

Louis’ hands are in the pockets of his trackies. “Missed you,” he says. “Missed you, so I drove down.” He shrugs.

Harry tilts his head. “Were you at your mum’s?” he asks.

“Yep.”

“Lou,” Harry says, inching forward the tiniest bit. “It’s the middle of the night. That’s, like, a three hour drive.”

Louis smiles all the way at that, and very carefully, reaches out to brush his fingers against Harry’s wrist.. “Yeah. Must be mad to have driven all this way just to see you, huh?”

Harry barks out a laugh, then, and steps forward again. Louis’ hand is on his wrist, and he feels tight across the chest, standing there in his stupid enormous foyer in his pants at half two in the morning with Louis, with _Louis_ , Jesus.

“I know this is like, kind of a big rom-com gesture,” Louis says, smiling self-consciously, glancing down at his own hand on Harry’s. “Showing up on your doorstep in the middle of the night. But I don’t want to make a big speech. Do I have to make a big speech?” he asks, tentative.

“Nah,” says Harry, taking the last step between them and then kissing Louis on the mouth, easy as all that.

Louis’ hands go to Harry’s hips, and then his waist, and they trip over Louis’ overnight bag as they stumble to get their footing right, but Harry barely notices, because Louis is here. He’s _here_ , not in a shitty hotel or a posh suite or a secluded cabin in the woods. He’s here in Harry’s house, in London, the world going on just outside the door around them. They’ve got a movie premiere in two days, and another leg of the tour to get through, and Zayn’s been sending cryptic texts about “big news,” and none of that seems to matter much all of a sudden. For the first time in ages, that doesn’t seem to matter, because he’s got Louis just beside him in the thick of it, kissing him like he doesn’t want to stop -- like he wants to take Harry’s hand and follow him up to his too-big bed and stay there, stay just there for as long as they can, and then take the rest of it as it comes.

 _I love you_ , Harry thinks. _Fuck, I love you_.

He doesn’t say it, though, because he suspects he doesn’t have to. So when Louis pulls back, just an inch, like he’s checking that this is alright -- that they can have this -- Harry smiles, and twines their fingers together like this is the most natural thing in the world.

“C’mon,” he says, leading Louis into the house. “I’ll give you the tour.”


End file.
